Blood, gore, and tone

The use of gore in movies and games is a highly contested concept. On the one hand, gore can provide the sort of visceral reactions that makes events more meaningful - a gritty war movie that doesn't use gore will seem almost cartoonish, and in some cases war movies with gore can be shown on major TV networks, something that gory movies lacking that context cannot do. On the other hand, gore can also be seen as a cheap thrill with questionable moral value, thrown in to appeal to teenagers rather than to have any real significance or bearing on the story. But what does gore do? What about it creates this divide?

On one end of the scale we've got "gore", which creates a sense of disgust and horror based on mutilating the human body (or other bodies) and appealing to the audience's own sense of fear and dread at having something similar happen to them. On the other end, there's "gorn", or "gore porn", which is gore for the sake of gore. It can be hard to judge the difference between them, because it's largely based on intent rather than severity or style, but the former is meant to have some value to the story, and the latter is meant to be "appealing" in its own right.

Sensory Reaction
One important aspect of gore is that it's an immediate, reliable, visceral reaction. Seeing gore can make the skin crawl in ways that merely hearing about "death" cannot. If you heard that a soldier died in a battle, you might not think much of it. If you hear in excruciating detail about how the bullet broke through his skull and punctured his brain, you may feel differently. The basis of concepts like finger damage and eye damage - things that may disgust you even if you just hear about them - are founded in intrinsic connections to identifiable parts of your body. You can almost always feel your fingers, and they're one of the most sensitive parts of your body. Therefore, if you hear about, or see, damage to a finger, that generates an immediate response. That's what gore can do: fill in for the sense of touch by immediately connecting to your real sense of touch.

This also creates a divide when talking about things like cartoons or anime, where the human body is strange and stylized. It's almost unbelievably unpleasant to watch a needle near a real person's eye - it's much less unpleasant to see one near an anime character's eye, because it doesn't look like an eye. In the same way, a lot of "stylized gore" ends up not connecting with the audience, because it doesn't look like damage that real people would take. Look at this clip, for example (gore warning, if it wasn't obvious): there's so much blood, and so little bone/muscle, that it makes me laugh. They don't seem like people, they seem like pinatas made of meat. It's like watching a video game model get torn apart. In contrast, this scene (also from a gory anime, naturally) relies on a realistically detailed finger - without that detail, the scene wouldn't be nearly as effective.

Anatomy is an important concept when it comes to averting the Nerf effect. Having realistic anatomy puts weight and damage behind an attack, because it relies on understandable, relatable concepts. When arms are sliced off in an anime scene or, heck, in the Star Wars movies, it's a clean cut. There may be blood, sure, but it still basically seems like a tentacle chunk in the shape of an arm. There's no sense of bones or muscles, just a big floppy "arm". In fact, most fantastic gore is like that - big bloody chunks, like something out of a Looney Tunes short. There's no sense of the constituent parts, or of any underlying skeleton: you just slice parts off like you were cutting up a roast. When you touch your arm in real life, you can easily feel the bones at its core. Media tends to depict it like it's only flesh, which makes it feel "unrealistic", at least in the sense that you can't relate to it. In contrast, a well-depicted arm break (complete with the sickening crack of bone) is generally far more effective. Compare this real picture (gore warning) from WW2 to the usual depiction of de-limbing: even though the end result is the same, the fact that the arm is a real arm connects it to all the properties of a real arm that are not present in a cartoon or anime sequence.

One particular type of damage that I feel is effective is damage from a cannonball. A cannonball is heavy in a way that the brain can relate to, and when fired out of a cannon that heavy thing is moving incredibly fast and bashing whatever gets in the way. On the other hand, it's also slow enough that you can see it coming - which, upon reflection, is terrifying. It's not like a bullet, where it's small enough that the brain might not even register it (when watching it, that is - presumably the person being hit is distinctly aware of it). A cannonball is large enough that if the brain has any idea of the weight of the thing, the idea of a limb being smashed off by one is as visceral as it gets. And it's not a clean cut either: bones are going to shatter and break as the cannonball impacts the leg. It's not just unpleasant (since I would say that most forms of amputation are unpleasant), it's unpleasant in a way that the brain can easily relate to.

In essence, damage and gore are the natural result of an object hitting the human body. Therefore, both the object, its speed, and the body are in play. The speed might be the most difficult part to understand in an abstract sense, but it's easy to hold a knife or a baseball bat, and it's easy to think about your body and how it would react to those sorts of stimuli. In fact, it's so easy that it's basically the whole point - your body feels uncomfortable even without you directly needing to think "that would be uncomfortable". Translating something unimaginable like "being slashed by a sword" into something brutally comprehensible like "getting your finger whacked off by a butcher's cleaver" is a major key to evoking emotional responses with fictional situations.

Depicting Reality
As mentioned above, war movies tend to get a pass when it comes to gore censorship:

"In both films [Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan], the content is not meant to shock, nor is it gratuitous. We applaud ABC for letting viewers know ahead of time about the graphic nature of the film and that the film would be uncut." - PTC president L. Brent Bozell

This is a major issue when it comes to "mature themes": is the theme in question being used for cheap shock value, or to really examine concepts and real-life events? Saving Private Ryan is an acceptable movie because stuff like that really happened (and happens), and depicting it helps people to understand the horrors of war. Is there some substance to, or reason for, the gore other than "blood is cool"? This, I think, is one of the defining lines between gore and gorn. Gore can provoke an emotional and sensory reaction, yes - but what is the purpose of that reaction? Is it an escapist form of titillation? Is it to revel in the reviled and forbidden? Or is it to try to empathize and sympathize with the victims of violent events - to understand their plight? 

The context of the gore is the deciding factor, and this is why those two movies were acceptable. Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan (whatever problems I may have with the latter) are about victims. The scene on Omaha Beach is not meant to be "totally badass action sequence", it's meant to be young men (American and German) being cut down in the prime of life. Making up an atrocity to show scenes of rape and slaughter would be excessive if it wasn't justified, but showing the horrors of the Holocaust is acceptable because it has real historical implications. The goal of the concept is to make sympathy, rather than to allow people to revel in, and celebrate, atrocities and violence. Of course, the concept of audience interpretation means that such things cannot be avoided, but the intended tone of the product does play a major factor.

The thing about gore in general is that it's unavoidable if you're being realistic. Yes, it's certainly possible to over-exaggerate, but people are full of bones and guts and blood, and pretending that we're not going to react negatively when being hit by a sword or a bullet is itself unrealistic. If the assumption is that people in a setting have normal human bodies, then their bodies behaving in "un-human" ways is going to be weird. This ties into the concept of "hard but fair": when bad things happen with a logical background, it's more justifiable and sympathetic than when bad things happen for absolutely no reason. If there's fountains of blood, it's going to seem intentionally over-the-top. If there's a reasonable amount of blood for the injury type, it's going to feel more like the natural result of damage to the human body.

Realistic damage and the negative reactions it provokes can be a major humanizing element for a given character. It's easy to not care when a group of stormtroopers is slashed up by a lightsaber, but only because it lacks emotional connection - there's no sense of pain, fear, or terror, and there's no damage that can be connected to plausibly. It's faceless, armored soldiers being slashed up by special effects and falling down; there's nothing for the audience to relate to. The aspect of automatic emotional responses works better when there's other emotions and elements to work with, and those emotions will feel more real if there's a layer of logic and plausibility underneath them.

Women and Gore

"Female soldier" isn't an uncommon character profession in most modern works. The age of "women in the kitchen" has largely passed by, and in most cases it's expected that a female character with combat training will be at the forefront of the fight along with all the more traditional male characters. Averting this concept would seem backwards, and can result in accusations of sexism. Yet, as poorly represented as soldiers generally are, "female soldiers" for some reason get it even worse in terms of characterization. They rarely feel like "women" and "soldiers" simultaneously - the latter has to be emphasized for the sake of some feminist ideal, when in actuality "being a soldier" should be more alienating to the audience than "being a woman".

An important point about this is that women are rarely treated "equally" to men when it comes to gore and violence. There are plenty of movies and books about a lone woman striving to prove that she's equal to men, but comparatively less about female soldiers fighting and dying alongside the men in equally grim and unpleasant circumstances. There are a few games and movies with female soldiers being killed alongside men, but they're comparatively rare. Of course, it wouldn't be uplifting to read a story about a woman going into combat and immediately dying, but essentially it's an unfair concept (in addition to the unfairness of the protagonist shield concept). How can they be judged by the same standards if one group is able to die and the other isn't?

There's a negative societal reaction to female gore in general, since "women" still generally fall under the automatic sympathetic heading, along with "children". The idea of female extras being killed en masse is considered upsetting. Hence, even settings where women are considered part of the normal army will shy away from showing the same graphic deaths for women as they would for men. A work that does depict a blood or gory death for a female character is usually suspected to have some underlying misogynist or fetishistic motive - and many of them do. This creates an imbalance where it's perfectly okay for women to be soldiers, but it's not okay for them to die like one.

When I talked about Dragon Quest, I noted that the difference between the male and female warriors suggested that a man is expected to take damage, but a woman is not. If the woman was expected to be cut or injured in the same way as the man, it would be insane not to wear the same amount of armor as him. Instead, women are often limited to superficial damage. It's hard to determine whether this is misogynist or misandrist, but it's definitely unequal. If men and women are meant to be treated as equals in combat service, they should be treated as equals in the unpleasant aspects of that service as well.

For example, I liked the character Emma Honeywell in The Last Remnant, because she was a sensible, down-to-earth character for whom "being a knight" was more important than "being female". This was reflected in one scene (major spoilers) where the way she fights is identical to what a male character would do in that position - no damsel-in-distress syndrome, no upper-arm-grabbing, nothing. But then I thought about it, and she's still one of the few female knights in the game. The generic soldiers, at least in this scene, are entirely male. She's a hardened knight with years of experience and a no-nonsense attitude, but she's also a protagonist, and thus gets a dignified protagonist's death instead of being crushed into a bloody pulp off-screen. There is at least a sense of her tiring and being wounded, but it's still something to think about.

On the other hand, there's "Aliens", a movie centering around a mixed-sex group of space marines. There were focal male and female characters and disposable male and female characters. The film did a good job of making it all seem very natural. All of these characters are marines, and they're all at risk, but some of them are male and some are female. Their gender is barely even relevant to their role. I've quoted James Cameron in the past stating that the consistency and tone of Aliens is what helps it succeed, and I think that includes this element of it. There's not a lot of meta-thinking or meta-justification - no "well x character didn't die because she's a girl". It all feels very real and very logical to the characters, and that reflects on the audience. 

What's especially interesting about Aliens is that Vasquez was written as a male character, but the gender was changed for a new dynamic. That's the approach I would say should be taken to the whole affair - don't write male marines or female marines, write marines. Their profession, environment, and skills should influence them more than their gender. If their job involves hazards and death, that should be represented, not just to be "fair" but to accurately represent the difficulty and strain of that profession. Above all, things should be equal.

To Sum Up:

1) Gore is a visceral concept that ties directly into immediate reactions of disgust and pain, which is an effective tool in manipulating the audience.

2) Gore can be effective in displaying how truly awful a situation is, and thus create sympathy for the characters caught up in it - but it has to be logical and reasonable, not over-the-top.

3) An unfair situation regarding gore (i.e. female characters don't die in the same way) creates an imbalance that undermines the logic of the situation, making the gory male deaths seem fake in comparison. Therefore, as unpleasant as it may be, consistency is a key element of making gore "believable" rather than "extraneous".

Mundane character detail

When it comes to creating characters, I've discussed ways that an environment can shape an individual - not just soldiers, but any human being. There is a tendency to make characters sort of exist in a static form, rather than a product of different factors and statuses. This can manifest as never looking different, never dressing different, never developing different beliefs, and so on. In contrast, things like character development and design development can help a character feel more real, and make events seem like they're having some impact on the character.

This doesn't need to be complex, though. You don't need to be a psychologist, a historian, or a paranormal expert to make a believable character. In essence, a character is ostensibly a human like you - different in terms of upbringing, values, and experiences, but still fundamentally similar. So here's a simple thing you can do to flesh out a character: plan out their day, from when they wake up to when they go to sleep. Include things like work, meals, and recreation. Think about your own life and the things you have to do every day, and then apply them to the character and the world they live in.

What does this accomplish? It establishes a lot of detail, including things like diet, hygiene, sleep habits, and living conditions. When discussing armor, I said that writers should ask themselves questions like "how would it feel", "how much does it weigh", "how easy is it to don", and so on. I brought up a similar concept when discussing buildings and cities: does a given area have all the facilities necessary to fulfill the inhabitants' needs? This is meant to accomplish a similar thing: to bring up the kind of questions that people can relate to, and to call on simple concepts that flesh a character out. We can sort these out into a few different categories:

Food and Diet
What does the character eat? Where does this food come from - nearby farms, supply trains, or a larger market? What food would be considered common, and what food would be considered a rare treat or delicacy? How does their diet reflect on their character - are they fat despite having little to eat, or thin despite an abundance? Where do they eat (i.e. do they have a specific cafeteria to go to)? Do they eat alone or with friends and comrades?

Hygiene and Health
What is the character's usual routine with regards to hygiene?  How do they shave? How do they clean their teeth? How do they bathe? If a character is incapable of cleaning a specific section, that should reasonably reflect on their character (unless you find it distasteful, of course). What sort of minor ailments might the character have to deal with, and how would they remedy them? If a character is wounded or crippled, how do they live their everyday life?

Appearance and Equipment
What sort of clothes does the character own? How do they decide what to wear on a given day? Take a brief moment to imagine them getting dressed, setting their hair, etc. (this will avoid travesties such as this and this). What daily rituals do they have with regards to "sprucing up" their appearance? If a commonly-assumed thing (like "applying makeup" for a woman) isn't present or common, their appearance should change to reflect that. If their gear includes armor or a suit of some kind, how do they don it and how long does it take? How do they clean their clothes and maintain their other equipment? Where did they obtain their equipment from? When they're on the move, how do they carry their equipment? If they're not carrying all of their equipment, where do they keep the rest of it?

Work and Experience
What does the character do as their "day job"? This does not necessarily imply a mundane preoccupation, but instead reflects on how they spend the majority of their time and how they bring in income. How does this time reflect on their skills - remember that, since this takes up most of their schedule, it's going to influence their capabilities and knowledge. Learn about the details of their job, and what it entails. Try to avoid "handwaving" this time period - understanding their duties and schedule will help you conceptualize their job, and thus their characterization. What sort of role does their job play in the community? How much money do they bring in, and how does it affect their holdings? What duties do they have outside of their immediate profession - i.e. cleaning the house, taking care of children, and so on.

Free Time and Socialization
What does the character do when they're not working? How much time do they actually have that's "not working"? What do they do for recreation? Who do they socialize with? What do they do with friends? What do they have to do when they're alone? How does the flow of information affect their understanding of the world? Where does their moral compass come from? Where do they get news from - gossip, town criers, local papers, or mass media? How do they react to mundane situations (i.e. stuff like "stealing from an employer" rather than rarer decisions like "do you kill the bandit")?

With this sort of information in hand, think about your own life and your own schedule. Think about an average day for you, and then replace the concepts that are specific to you with the questions you have just answered. Here are some examples to get you started:
Daily Life of a Peasant
Daily Life of a Knight
Daily Life of a Nun
Daily Life of a Roman Soldier (book link)
Daily Life of an Ancient Egyptian
Daily Life of a US Army Soldier
Daily Rituals of a Space Marine

What this kind of exercise accomplishes is making the character feel more "real". One issue with fictional characters is that, really, they only exist in brief windows of excitement - the audience can't be expected to hang out with them for all the boring parts of their life. And yet, it is the "boring parts" that shape who they are, what they enjoy, what they know, and what they think about things. Their character doesn't arise from nothingness - it's a reflection of their upbringing, their environment, and so on. By understanding how the character's basic needs and requirements are similar to, and different from, your own, you can make a more believable individual.

Now, you might say that this is the kind of thing that bogs a story down - readers don't need to know about every detail, players don't need to manually clean every strap of their armor, etc. While this is certainly true, this (and many other parts of believability) are not about directly shoving this into the limelight. Instead, it's an underlying logic that affects the way the character is depicted and portrayed without having to necessarily be shown. Not that I am saying you can't show it, as naturally a well-done "mundane" scene should cause the audience to identify more with the basic aspects of the character's life.

In essence, the goal here is to make the character seem like a human being by connecting them to all the basic concepts of "humanity". People have a basic set of needs - food, shelter, socialization - and appealing to those concepts should allow the character to transcend issues of setting and culture and create empathy within the audience.

So, To Sum Up:
1) Creating a "routine schedule" for a character can help you understand and display the kinds of things that their life entails outside of your specific story.
2) It allows you to use a logical setting in order to justify where things like food, drink, and information come from - if your setting makes sense, every need will have a reasonable source.
3) It also allows you to draw upon your own personal experience in terms of basic character design, and then see how that basic concept changes when you account for the character's different perspective.

Analysis: Dragon Quest

Dragon Quest is a classic series dating back to the original NES / Famicom. In that way, it shares a lot of its origins with Final Fantasy: it's a simple RPG about heroes vanquishing villains, with a lot of recognizable fantasy concepts. However, unlike Final Fantasy, DQ chose to stay in that genre. While Final Fantasy moved on from fantasy to steampunk (FF6), dystopia (FF7), and modern fantasy (FF8), DQ kept doing what it's always done.

Talking about things like the setting, story, and logic (i.e. my usual fare) of Dragon Quest seems to be a bit pointless. Dragon Quest has always been about being iconic, rather than challenging or innovative. It's had some neat plot twists and so on in the past, but the point has always been heroic adventure, not grounded politics and sensibilities. When I talked about FFXI, for example, I was doing so on the grounds that the material indicated a level of realism and depth that I didn't think was expressed in the game itself. Dragon Quest doesn't deal in that - it deals in mighty knights, crafty wizards, and noble priests banding together to rid the world of evil. It's simple, but effective for what it needs to do.

Early on, Dragon Quest's designs were essentially a way to convert Toriyama's art into character sprites, hence the need for bright, recognizable colors. They also helped to maintain a fairly cartoonish look that defined the tone and theme of the game - heroic, but childish, fantasy. This trend continued into later Dragon Quest games, where simple-but-recognizable designs like the cleric, the mage, and the warrior were necessary to create a sense of genre consistency based on immediately comprehensible iconic imagery. Dragon Quest could be said to have established a standard for the "generic 8-bit RPG", and whenever there's a parody of that era in a game or anime, it's going to resemble Dragon Quest on some level.

However, as those class designs showed, "realism" wasn't really a major concern for classic Dragon Quest. The clothing is bright, colorful, and clearly not intended to look like "real cloth", while the armor is similarly intangible and nonsensical. The series has varied in its representation of what items are supposed to look like, from those very basic beginnings to slightly more tangible materials by DQ VII. The designs are still certainly cartoonish, but there's at least some effort to make the material look more real. It's a lot like "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" in that sense, where it's hardly meant to be realistic, but there's still room for things that looks a bit more "real" (as well as the addition of a mail shirt to Link's design).

This brings us to Dragon Quest IX, which I feel expresses both material realism and stylistic cartoonishness. In fact, I'd say the use of the former (far more than any previous DQ game) emphasizes the nature of the latter. This is going to tie both into armor design and clothing design. So, without further ado, let's take a look at some classes:

Warrior
Right off the bat, we can see the clash between the old and the new. DQ9's warriors are laudable because they look like they're actually wearing metal, cloth, and leather. They did a good job of representing the material and making it look like what it's meant to be, rather than the sort of abstract "colorful metal" that previous games used. The male warrior is even wearing a padded or leather tunic over his mail in a quite sensible fashion. Sure, the helmet is a little cartoonish to fit his giant head, but overall the male warrior looks like a pretty solid design.

Which, unfortunately, brings us to the female. The female is weird because the materials are still there - it still looks like metal and mail and leather - but not much else is. It acknowledges the nature and subsistence of armor, but neither its role in providing coverage nor the discomfort that would follow with wearing armor in such a fashion. It's hard to imagine the woman getting hit without unpleasantly gory things following because of the nature of the materials. It's one thing to image being hit by a plastic sword, it's another if that sword is clearly sharp enough to cut flesh. This is probably something that deserves its own update - when women are depicted as soldiers, they're rarely shown to be as vulnerable to distressing or catastrophic damage as male soldier are.

Paladin
While both of these designs are pretty solid in terms of materials (I especially think the male paladin's cape and tunic being bordered in such a way is a nice touch), there's still some visible imbalance. For no adequately explained reason, the woman is leaving flesh exposed on her upper legs and upper torso. There's not even cloth underneath, unless she's choosing to wear skin-colored cloth. It's just skin under mail and plate.

One strange thing about this picture, though, is that in some ways the woman is actually better-armored than the man, with leg protection, gauntlets, and some light plate protection on the torso. However, those pointless gaps draw enough attention that it overcomes that difference. The man's legs may be exposed to damage, but at least they're not exposed to the elements. He seems like a reasonable traveler - she does not.

Gladiator
Now here, at least, is a class where both male and female are equally exposed. Sure, the female is still wearing a skirt for no reason other than "girls wear skirts I guess", but in terms of armor protection they're basically equal, and they both show off some skin for no reason. This is the crux of the issue - thematic fairness, rather than simply being protected or unprotected. It's okay for Red Sonja to run around in unrealistic gear as long as Conan does the same. Naturally in the earliest Robert E. Howard stories, both Conan and Sonja were reasonably armored for whatever period they were in - it was the style of comics and movies that resulted in the depictions we imagine today. As a side-note, I think this design does a pretty good job with tangible materials despite its obviously less-than-sensible coverage design.

Armamentalist
Look how close they are to having balanced design. They're so close. They're both reasonably clothed in a pretty exciting visual style that still looks tangible and sensible (although perhaps not for long-term adventuring), and then the woman just neglects to wear pants. Now, obviously, skirts are a real thing and there has to be some allowance for their existence, but within the context of the illustration it just seems unfair. Technically the skirt seems short enough that she could still move around and so on, but still - if she's a traveler, she's going to want to avoid exposure to the elements. The part that bothers me is that it's so close to being equal and sensible, but there's still bared skin for clear fanservice reasons. I just wish there was a class where the woman was wearing more and had more coverage than the man did.

Ranger
Oh! Well, thank you, DQ9! 

While I really like both of these designs in terms of style and tangibility (with clear steppe inspirations), it's funny how the warmth and coverage of some sections makes the few exposed areas look weirder. Like obviously there's the male refusing to wear a shirt, but even little things like the woman having some leg-skin exposed and not wearing gloves just makes me feel like they'd get cold quickly. It's not just because skin is exposed per se - after all, it makes sense to wear less if it's warm out - but the presence of thick clothing and fur hats sort of suggests that it's meant for cold weather. I suppose it all depends on the artist's mindset when he drew it.

Conclusion
There's still a few classes left I haven't looked at - casters, primarily - that I didn't feel were quite as important to get across what I'm trying to say. Most of those classes focus on cloth and leather alone, and some are pretty good as far as coverage and equality go. These pages have all of them, and even the unrealistically exposed ones like the minstrel and mage are justified by at least a general sense of fairness (i.e. neither the male nor the female is really meant to look like a serious adventurer). The warrior is by far the weirdest case, not just because the female's unrealistic, but because the male is.

This goes back to concepts of tone. If things are going to be realistic, they should be realistic equally. If things are going to be unrealistic, they should be unrealistic equally. Theoretically, "unrealistic" is less of a hassle because something can look plausible and still be unrealistic, as these designs are, but it still creates a sense of distance between the two. A realistic or plausible design naturally brings up concepts of coverage, protection, and materials, and this ends up correlating to the idea of a blow hitting flesh rather than leather or metal.

As far as clothing goes, though, it's all going to depend on how the environment is portrayed. Heat and sweat are naturally going to make exposure more reasonable, while wind and chill are going to suggest bundling up. I tried to judge these designs not by an assumption of a default environment, but by a sense of consistency within the design itself. Covering up 9/10ths of your body with heavy materials and then deciding "no, I think a skirt is fine for weather like this" seems a bit counter-intuitive. This isn't as big of an issue, because unlike armor clothing choice comes down to personal comfort and so on, but it's still noteworthy to me because of the depiction.

So, To Sum Up:
1) Dragon Quest is a pretty solid "not realistic, doesn't care to be realistic" RPG series.
2) Its recent forays into more realistic textures (if not characters) has led to an odd disconnect.
3) While this decision was for stylistic, rather than logical, reasons, it still has an impact on perception of the world.
4) Establishing gender equality becomes an issue when armor seems logical, rather than stylized.

Analysis: Final Fantasy XI

Also known as "Final Fantasy Online", FFXI is, in many ways, a standard MMO. It contains many of the concepts that can be found in other MMOs, such as a linear, static storyline and a reduced focus on "the individual". However, unlike a lot of other online games, FFXI has an undercurrent and a background that I really think could have used some development and focus. It's a game that, like Lost Planet, would do better with a wider range of games to explore the different facets of the setting.

The unfortunate fact about FFXI is that the things I'm about to discuss are largely irrelevant to the game itself. The need for an infinite swarm of players and monsters means that the political and historical setting of the game are irrelevant. Still, I feel that there is enough material to analyze it even if it is set apart from the game it's meant to represent. To that end, much of my information comes from supplemental material, rather than the game itself. In fact, I believe we'll discover that "the game itself" is restricting some otherwise believable content that exists only as lore.

Setting
Final Fantasy XI takes place in the world of Vana'diel, which contains both the "races of light" and the Beastmen. The races of light are the player-character races - the standard Humes, the proud Elvaan, the burly Galka, the cat-like Mithra, and the petite, but magical, Tarutaru. The Beastmen are, by and large, also fairly standard for their role as "human-like antagonists", with the warrior Orcs, the crafty Goblins, the theocratic Yagudo, the hive-themed Antica, and so on.

Initially, this seems like a very cut-and-dry setup, with the "good" races united against the "evil" races. However, both groups are more than they seem. The races of light, for example, have only recently united, and in the past they were fractured and divisive, warring amongst themselves for national glory. It is only the uniting of the Beastmen against them in the Crystal War that led to their forced alliance. In addition, the races are hardly perfect, with the same amount of backstabbing, infighting, and personal flaws that you'd expect from real humans. The "Beastmen" are hardly pure evil, either. In the past, they interacted with the other races at roughly the same level - to an Elvaan, a Yagudo was no more "beast" than a Hume was. However, offenses committed by the "races of light" have led to these Beastmen to unite against them. For example, the turtle-like Quadav were a fairly isolationist race until the Humes and Galka aggressively mined into their territory. The Yagudo, similarly, believe the other races to be encroaching on ground they think is rightfully theirs.

In essence, this is a story about ten or so different races that came together into two major groups. On the other hand, the way the story is presented initially suggests that it's the other way around - two groups that are made up of five or so races each. In terms of believability, it seems far easier to accept the former than the latter, because the former is built up on relationships and alliances, and the latter is a label applied to barely-developed cultures. One is a label applied for game reasons, and the other is a label applied for more natural reasons.

It's the same with any historical alliance. In World War 2, you could say that you've got the "Allies" and the "Axis", each with their own member nations - or you could say that a bunch of independent nations came together for their own personal reasons and formed two major powers: the "Allies" and the "Axis". The former suggests that their group identity is more important than their individual cultures, and the latter suggests the opposite. The former is better for gameplay, because it creates two solid and unassailable factions that can war against each other, and the latter is better for a believable world, because it doesn't make sense for things to be so cleanly divided. It's a pure game construct to justify two wholly static sides.

Background and History
The Crystal War is the defining conflict of FFXI's recent history, and as mentioned above it shapes the player's view of the conflict by making things very black and white. However, delving a bit further back into Vana'diel's history, there are a lot more "petty conflicts", or conflicts for purposes like greed and expansion rather than good and evil. Each race has had its own empires and its own wars, for whatever reason. This comes back to the black-and-white concepts described above: are these nations just there to be part of the "good versus evil" concept, or are they composed of individuals with their own desires and ambitions?

For example, Vana'diel's history has included:
- infighting among Aztec-themed Taru tribes in ages past.
- an alliance between Elvaan and Quadav to defeat Tarus and Mithras.
- Humes using superior weapons to soundly defeat the traditional Elvaan knights.
- a Taru version of Alexander the Great who was accused of insubordination and stripped of his rank.
- a Galkan captain who led raids both against other "civilized" nations as well as Beastmen and pirates.

This is the kind of stuff that never comes up; it's comparatively natural politics, with different motivations and cultures being involved. Compared to the "Good guys versus bad guys" main plot, it's far more intricate and believable. It's comparable to human history in that way. The whole "every race is its own solid empire" thing is a bit troubling, but there's at least hints of dissent that force cooperation and unity. Wars are fought over territory, over different belief systems, and over pure material wealth, but they're rarely fought for an enforced "right versus wrong" concept. Even the alliance of the "light" races is more comparable to the Holy League, with the Beastmen taking the role of the Ottoman Empire as foreign invaders from a different culture/religion. While the invaders are in the picture, everyone's united under their shared faith and belief, but you know as soon as that threat's gone they're going back to killing each other for selfish reasons.

Also, like Final Fantasy Tactics, the wars in FFXI are meant to be on a much larger, more conventional scale than the "adventurer" concepts established by the actual gameplay. Wars, at least as represented by background material, exist on a much more grounded level than combat in the game. One battle consisted of Hume musketeers holding a pass against Elvaan cavalry, which is grounded in logic that simply doesn't exist in the game. Things like "levels", "special abilities", and "stats" are not addressed in the same way that they are in gameplay. This is best represented by the game's opening movie, which is meant to be more like "real combat" than the gameplay is in terms of movement, strategy, and the amount of punishment an individual can take. This isn't reflected in gameplay, but if that movie reflected what was happening in gameplay it would look preposterous. In the same way, life for citizens in the game is not the same as life for player avatars - compare the description of Bastok and its economic/political situation to the infinite playground of the player character.

In short, from a historical perspective, FFXI wants to be believable and grounded - not, perhaps, "realistic", but fantasy is fantasy. In comparison, the game itself is bound by its own nature, relying on a lot of meta-concepts and additions that are simply not acknowledged by the world at large. Now, I'm being a bit unfair here, because things like "good and evil are not that simple" are technically brought up in the game, but the issue is that for gameplay reasons they're never important. The Beastmen, with the exception of some goblins, are always hostile, forever. This is because they need to serve as sources of experience and money for players. The background, in contrast, indicates that the situation is a lot more morally grey, leading to concepts like interaction and diplomacy that just don't fit in the confines of the gameplay.

Presentation
Weapons and armor in FFXI can range from fairly reasonable sets of cloth and mail to more unrealistic designs, whether in terms of material or in terms of...everything. It's hard to say where one ends and the other begins, so in general it's easier to say that FFXI's aesthetic is "vaguely realistic" and leave it at that. However, a lot of the more grounded designs, I feel, can be ascribed to Mitsuhiro Arita, who provides a lot of the artwork for the game's supplemental material. For example, this article from the Vana'diel Tribune establishes believable armor layers, including different parts, and generally suggests a much more believable design (in terms of materials and in terms of its sensibility) than is established in the game.

Mitsuhiro Arita also provides the illustrations for the Vana'diel Profiles, the historical biographies that provided a lot of the information I analyzed above, such as the pre-Crystal War stuff. The combination of writing and artistic style is what really sells them, for me - it feels more like a historical record than a JRPG plot. They operate on different rules: FFXI is power-hungry high fantasy, while the background material is much more grounded and connected to some sort of reality. Again, it's all the necessities of gameplay. Besides obvious things like graphical and content limitations, FFXI as a game has to deal with the fact that it's essentially a theme park. Players need to have unlimited, unhindered access to content, they need to advance in a very drastic and direct way, and they need to have things to kill so they can move up in the world.

Essentially, that is the issue. Final Fantasy XI has an interesting world, but that world cannot co-exist with the necessities of gameplay. Perhaps if it had been done as something else - a tabletop RPG, for example, or even a miniatures wargame - it would end up differently. Of course, the parallels with Warhammer Fantasy become more clear at this point, but while Warhammer had more grounded content as the majority of its material, with Warhammer Online being the exception, Final Fantasy XI has the opposite situation. In essence, the world that the game presents is defined by its gameplay.

This was also an issue with Final Fantasy Tactics, but in general I felt that FFT's squad-based approach and potential for perma-death made it at least a little less of a problem. In FFXI, the game's setup is so alien to its background material that they might as well be entirely different. Like FFT, the background material of the game relies heavily on the mundane, using simple, understandable historical events in addition to a larger backdrop of magic, gods, and demons. The problem for both is that the RPG gameplay does not correspond with a world where people behave, and are treated like, people.

So, To Sum Up:
1) Final Fantasy XI is a primary example of gameplay influencing and limiting story and interaction.
2) Its good ideas can be ascribed to things that exist outside the purview of the game's mechanics.
3) Its bad ideas can be connected to the necessities of MMO gameplay.
4) If it was set up in a different format that was less reliant on non-realism, it would be better able to explore its mundane elements and eschew its "grindy" elements.

Risk, fear, and mortality

Combat is a major aspect of media. Games bear the brunt of combat-related events, but films and books have their fair share of it. In some cases, combat is reasonably non-lethal (based on unarmed melee combat or something similar), but in the majority of cases, combat is meant to be lethal, either by guns, swords, or magic spells. Injury and death are two very different things. Injury can be healed or recovered from - death cannot. Death is a lesson that cannot be repeated; if a character dies, then they are done.

This is a topic I've covered before, but that was largely based on a concept of avoiding death through different actions. Today, I'd like to talk about reactions to death, or how it's depicted within the universe. There's two major concepts I'd like to establish: "Risk" and "Fear".

Risk refers to the likelihood of a character's death, either in statistical terms (for games) or narrative terms (for books, movies, and cutscenes).  A character with a lot of plot shielding is low risk, as is a character who's not usually in lethal combat situations. A powerful character is at less risk than a weaker character, and a high-level character is at less risk than a low-level character. The importance of risk is that it determines the plausibility of a character dying, and affects how they ought to react. Risk can best be described as the meta-aspect of character death.

Fear refers to a character's reaction to the potential of dying. A character who is doing everything he or she can do in order to avoid death has high fear. A character who quips and snarks in the middle of combat and clearly doesn't give a damn has low fear. Fear is important because it is an aspect of their characterization - if the character feels like he or she is going to die, then the audience should become drawn in. A lack of fear can be seen either as being "badass" (i.e. they don't care if they die) or "irreverent" (i.e. they know they're not going to die) depending on how it's handled. Fear can best be described as the in-universe aspect of character death.

So with those concepts established, let's take a look at this chart I whipped up. "F" and "R" represent fear and risk, respectively, and "-" and "+" refer to an absence or presence of that element. The interaction of these elements can affect the audience's understanding of a character and their condition. Low amounts of either of these elements can result in something being "cartoony" or "rule of cool", while higher amounts makes a work more "serious" (as in, "something that should be taken seriously").

No Fear, No Risk (-/-): This is a character who is immune to everything and they know it. This is the standard "snarky protagonist" who beats up every enemy soldier without a second thought. There's no drama, just a visceral "awesome" feeling from watching a guy be objectively superior to everyone they encounter. The Star Wars prequels were overloaded with this, culminating in Episode 3 when an entire elevator full of battle droids holding Obi-Wan and Anakin at gunpoint were sliced through without even a brief pause for peril or danger. Many people will defend this aspect as being "rule of cool" or some similar concept, but there's absolutely no room for drama here - it's a dolled-up version of shooting fish in a barrel, and its only value is as some sort of revenge or power fantasy.

No Fear, Risk (-/+): This is a scenario where a character is technically in danger, but continues to quip and snark nonetheless, or charges out into the open with both guns blazing. In a fairly balanced game, this character is either lucky or dead. In a non-interactive medium, their death will generally either be a comical waste or a dramatic reveal. "Risk" naturally, can come in several forms - from sudden death in combat to "cursing the author for totally killing that dude off" - but the end result is the same: a disconnect between what's happening and how the individual treats it.

I should clarify that when I say "no fear" I mean that there is no acknowledgment of the risk of death. The individual proceeds as though combat was a game, and they're generally surprised if they're severely hurt (as is the audience, more often than not). A character who acknowledges the threat of death but chooses to ignore it is not the same as a character who treats death as something that "happens to other people".

Fear, No Risk (+/-): This sort of character can be a coward, a self-preservationist, or perhaps even a grimly determined soldier - but they're also not in any danger, regardless of their response to the situation. This is a difficult one to judge; on the one hand, they're displaying believable responses towards combat and the risks it entails, but on the other hand they're not going to be exposed to it for meta-reasons. They might be a protagonist, a title character, or a viewpoint character - for whatever reason, it's obvious they're just not going to die. However, depending on how the situation is handled, a "Fear, No Risk" character can suggest at the possibility of that death happening anyways. In addition, the character in such a case doesn't know that they're not going to die, so maintaining the illusion of risk can be a major factor in whether something is plausible or not.

On the other hand, "Fear, No Risk" can also lead to melodrama if there is a gameplay/story (or action scene/story) mismatch. A character who takes a billion hits in gameplay can be afraid of a man with a pistol in a cutscene. This creates a sense of false drama, where what should be a trivial obstacle is made into a dramatic issue because they're ignoring the thousands of wounds the character has already shrugged off.

Fear, Risk (+/+): The most believable combination, with a match-up of character risk and character reaction. These are characters who could die at any moment and who know it. Their reactions may vary, from cowardice to resignation to defiance, but the drama of the series comes from not only their reactions to a perilous situation, but also the fact that it could actually happen and they're not arbitrarily protected by the plot. Therefore, their sacrifice (though still fictional) has much more emotional attachment to it. Their reactions are made more poignant because, for them, the risk is present and plausible.

Now let's take these concepts and apply them to some existing franchises.

Warhammer 40,000: Because of the grand scale of the setting, all four points are touched upon. "No Risk" is generally reserved for protagonists and book characters (like the main characters of Dawn of War 2), while "No Fear" is generally much more ubiquitous, applying to a broader group. It's probably best to look at it faction-by-faction:
Necrons: No Fear, No Risk. The Necrons have no real humanizing elements to them - they're an unstoppable force that can briefly be delayed, but never fully countered. They're not meant to be sympathetic, they're meant to be boogeymen. The same can be applied to the Tyranids, who may suffer defeats, but whose hivemind status means that the loss of individuals is unimportant.
Orks: No Fear, Risk. Not a huge amount of risk, mind you, but an ork can still die. Orks also happen to lack any fear of death as a racial trait, so while they might get shot or blown up, they don't really care. This is why they're the "comedy race": because they're operating under the same combat rules as everyone else, but the consequences don't matter to them.
Space Marines: Varies. The Space Marines are among the most schizophrenic factions due to their varying levels of power. Protagonist Space Marines are generally "no fear, no risk", while lower-level space marines are "no fear, risk". I pointed out DoW2 because that gap exists: the main characters can be resurrected, but the helmeted generic space marines that serve as their squad members are just sort of left where they die.
Imperial Guard: Fear, Risk. The IG are the "normal human" faction, and as such have the most human response. The IG are thrown into countless unwinnable battles, and their soldiers know it. Thus, the IG are the most "serious" faction, because there is consequence to their decisions and actions. This is in contrast to the Orks, who are more physically powerful and also do not care about losing. A few special characters might fall under "no risk", but the average guardsman is definitely expendable and aware of it.

Berserk: Berserk is a grim, bloody manga - but it still manages to have a cast of characters who are largely immune to death (though they can still be harmed). Therefore, it is "Fear, No Risk" for the protagonists (at best) and "Fear, Risk" for everyone else. Soldiers are slaughtered en masse by monsters or demons or each other, but while the main characters can be pushed to their limits, it's pretty clear that none of them are going to die off unless it's in a major climactic scene. Still, one thing I appreciate about Berserk is that it manages to make the soldiers' deaths horrific and disgusting enough that the "risk" and "fear" are both warranted.

Dragon Age: Dragon Age would like to be "Fear, Risk" judging by the focus on mature concepts and themes - blood, betrayal, death, foul sorceries, and so on. However, it comes out as "No Fear, No Risk" because the game centers on a team of protagonists who can't be killed outside of very specific player choices (no risk) and have conversations like this or like this (no fear). The snarky quips prevent any feeling of trepidation or fear, and never forces players to leave their comfort zones. In exchange, the game offers us romance subplots straight out of a Joss Whedon flick. It's almost impossible for me to take it seriously, because the "seriousness" of the setting primarily comes from blood and gore, not from any real logical framework. Most of this analysis applies to Mass Effect as well, with the semi-exception of the final mission of ME2 (a partial-Fear, partial-Risk situation).

Metal Gear Solid: While MGS generally maintains an action movie mentality, MGS4 features a lot more of Snake getting hurt and mutilated by things in an attempt to gain sympathy for his character. This creates a "Fear, No Risk" situation: he gets shot a million times in gameplay and barely cares, but then he gets stabbed in a cutscene and "oh no he's hurt badly what do we do". The characters try to act like things are super-serious, but the fact that you can heal up in gameplay by eating a ration sort of undoes the pathos of the situation. The guards, on the other hand, are "No Fear, Risk" - they can die easily, but with the exception of the militia in MGS4, they'll charge at you despite the odds. You can blame mind control and nanomachines for this, but you'd think they'd at least try to regroup or reorganize or something instead of continually charging at the guy who's mowing them all down.

Heavy Rain: A "Fear, No Risk" situation for some characters, a "Fear, Risk" situation for others. Finding out which characters have risk and which don't is a matter of experimentation, but on the first playthrough most people will treat it as though every character is equally at risk, which makes it a partial "Fear, Risk" masquerading as a full version.

Bleach: The ratio of "people looking shocked at some major wound" to "good-guy deaths" is currently hovering somewhere around 500,000 to none, so Bleach is a pretty solid "Fear, No Risk" situation. This does not apply to the main character, Ichigo, who doesn't really care about the potential for dying, and thus is solidly in the "No Fear, No Risk" category. This is meant to make him seem more powerful and courageous. Whether or not it works is arguable.

Every Superhero Comic: "Oh no, [x character] is dead!" If [x character] is a main character, resurrect him or her after a short period of mourning. If [x character] is a minor character, leave them dead so you can illustrate how totally awesome whoever killed them was. Rinse and repeat as needed.  A "Fear, No Risk" scenario because of the reactions of the characters in-universe.

To Sum Up:
1) Whether combat is "serious" or "lighthearted" is based on potential for death and reactions to death.
2) A situation where neither fear nor risk is present is an exercise in "rule of cool" at best.
3) A situation where risk is present, but fear is not, is an awkward setup that suspends disbelief regarding the character's personality unless some explanation is offered.
4) A situation where fear is present, but risk is not, will vary depending on how obvious it is that the character is not going to die.
5) A situation where both fear and risk are present matches up the best in terms of conveying drama and the potential for death, because both the meta-universe and the character acknowledge danger.

Analysis: Final Fantasy Tactics

Probably the most serious and down-to-earth Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy Tactics is a thematically divided concept. On the one hand, it's a very grounded story about a civil war of succession tearing apart a country, with a side helping of religious corruption and intrigue. On the other hand, it's a Final Fantasy game with chocobos and mages and adorable noseless character sprites. Essentially, I think the development team did the best job they could with the tools they had, which is why FFT remains my favorite Final Fantasy game to this day.

Thematically, FFT can be divided into the "story" and the "game". These are not very different, as is the case for many other games, but it's still different enough to be noteworthy. In essence, both are considered to be part of the "canon", and this can cause some minor contradictions and issues.

Background
Final Fantasy Tactics takes place in the Kingdom of Ivalice, which consists of multiple duchies not unlike a real kingdom. Ivalice's most important recent event is the Fifty Years' War against their neighbor Ordallia, which was costly to both sides. Following this, payment could not be delivered to the soldiers who had fought in the conflict (an event not dissimilar from the Shogunate's inability to pay samurai after the failed Mongol invasion of Japan). This led to rebellion and an increase in banditry throughout the kingdom.

This trouble came to a head when the weak and ineffectual King Ondoria Atkascha died, leaving the throne torn between his infant son-by-blood Prince Orinus and his adopted daughter / half-sister Princess Ovelia. This dispute, largely used as a way for nobles to gain power themselves, resulted in the War of the Lions. Behind the scenes, however, the state church of Ivalice has its own agenda, and is manipulating things to its advantage.

In essence, FFT's plot is largely political. The protagonist's actions deal not with these disputes, but instead with the dealings of the church, who are attempting to gather ancient stones and unlock a sealed demon. Everything  described above essentially exists in the background except where protagonists and their actions are concerned. In fact, most of the War of the Lions is only shown when it intersects with the "find all the macguffins" plot. I can see why they did this, but it also feels like a bit of a waste. Still, the fact that they don't really discuss either conflict in-depth allows the player to imagine what must have happened given the descriptions in the game's libraries.

The background is one major thing that I like about FFT. It's a war of kings and successions - the mundane nature of the strife makes it more believable. Even the "sealed demon" plot is a bit more mundane than most, connecting more into the intrigue and drama of a tangled social web rather than simply being "get all the stones, kill the demon, everything's fine". However, the actual low-key elements are ignored in favor of the comparatively high-fantasy, high-magic plot.

Setting
Unlike the later incarnations of Ivalice, the world of FFT holds humanity as the only "sentient" race. Monsters and other creatures still exist, but they are dealt with primarily in the form of random battles (i.e. they waylay travelers). Humans are the only species who have any sort of culture or infrastructure. To me, this gave it more of a direct historical bent. There were no wacky shoehorned races with a single defining characteristic - it's just human interaction.

FFT works on a sort of waypoint map system. It takes a day to travel between "waypoints", and a waypoint represents a general area - a forest, a marsh, a city, a castle, or whatever it needs to be. This suggests a great deal of distance, meaning that 99% of the game world isn't visible and can be assumed to hold farms, mines, and all the other necessary components of a functional society. This is further reinforced by the inclusion of "propositions", or mundane jobs like mining and salvage that your subordinates can be sent off to complete.

One thing that I don't feel is explored enough is the role of magic. In FFT, magic is fairly common - anyone can become a mage given enough practice, and the only restriction on spells is based on "MP" (no material costs and so on). However, there's no real sign of this being a big deal within the setting. For example, despite the presence of mages who can cast healing spells, the country's recent history includes a deadly plague that killed many people, including the parents of several protagonists. Still, there's no explicit detail given either, so it's possible that there were other issues at play.

For obvious reasons, the "party versus party" aspect of combat in Ivalice gets the most coverage. Each class is able to pull its weight fairly well, but like many other games the "normal" humans become unrealistic to make up for this, eventually becoming able to give and take far more punishment than a real person could. In essence, every class is equally "magical", and there's no normal humans within the gameplay. Larger scale combat is given much less attention. It is mentioned that the wars have produced many casualties, but other than that the details of warfare are left to the player's imagination. Still, the presence of magic users in both gameplay and cutscenes suggests that there is at least some level of mage-based warfare in addition to the standard medieval setup.

A special note should go to the role of gender in the game. There doesn't seem to be a patriarchal or misogynist culture in Ivalice - women can take any job a man can (with the exception of Bard, because they become Dancers instead), and there are several prominent female characters like the royal knight Agrias and her subordinates. However, the "important" parts of the plot are largely carried out by men - i.e., most of the nobles and high priests are male. There's no point where gender is overtly an issue, but the undercurrent somehow remains.

Design
Final Fantasy Tactics is the most "serious" Final Fantasy game in terms of its design, through the use of color, lighting, and costuming. This does not make it "realistic" - it's just less cartoony than, say, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (compare the black mages on the right to the black mage from FFTA). As discussed in the last update, the simple use of different palettes can radically affect the feel of a setting.

The armor of the setting is quasi-realistic, but nowhere near "actual" realism - look at the knights above and you'll notice that they basically have a small chestpiece and arm/leg armor. The difference between it and, say, Fire Emblem is in terms of perception, not of design. It's easy to notice Fire Emblem's armor issues, because they're bright and in-your-face. In contrast, FFT's armor design is more muted and thus less overtly ridiculous.

One thing the style does manage to accomplish is to make the materials feel more realistic. Look at the fur lining on the female wizard's coat, or the leather of the male wizard's boots and gloves. I would say that metal is the unfortunate exception to this, especially in the case of dragoons, whose armor doesn't really seem that solid (perhaps due to its coloration). For the most part, though, mundane materials like cloth are well represented. A problem arises when this can call attention to the sillier designs, such as the female squire or geomancer (aren't they cold?).

Generics
The part of Final Fantasy Tactics that really makes it my favorite Final Fantasy game is the "generic soldiers". These soldiers consist only of a name, statistics, and (in the original Japanese and re-released PSP update) a single quote connected to their name. However, their nature as dynamic participants in the gameplay means that they endeared to me more than their "unique character" counterparts. FFT does a pretty great job of taking the few lines they get and trying to take as much characterization as they can get from them. In addition to standard combat roles, generic characters can be sent out on missions (as described earlier), and when they return they offer a short report detailing their success or failure.

Generics are not simply the player's tools, however. They can be dismissed and will be upset by this, or they can leave on their own if they become too cowardly or too pious. Each of these possibilities has a set of quotes associated with it that I found to be fairly impressive (skip to "00quotes" on this FAQ):

Dismissal attempt: Won't you rethink this? We've come this far together.
Dismissal attempt: Are you certain about this? I'd thought us faster friends.
Dismissal attempt : I beg you, do not say such things! I'll prove my worth to you, I swear it!
Bravery threat: Fear gnaws ever at my heart. I do not wish to die!
Bravery threat: I...I'm afraid. I do not mean to be so craven, but...I am.
Bravery threat: I beg you, will you not send another in my place when next we face battle?
Faith threat: I've lost all faith in humanity. Are there none I can trust but the gods?
Faith desertion: I had rather obey the will of the gods than yours.

What I like about these quotes is that they illustrate a consciousness outside of the direct control of the player. These are not pawns to be used, although the gameplay would certainly have you think so. These are human beings who either support the protagonist's cause or value his coin. The player can lead them to their deaths if he so desires, but these simple quotes exist to illustrate that in both self-preservational and moral terms, these "generics" still have their own beliefs and desires. This makes them people, rather than tools, and it would have been interesting to me if the game had been able to expound more upon this.

Conclusion
Final Fantasy Tactics is, to me, a game where a lot of very small, finely detailed touches can change the larger influence of the game. The artistic choices make it feel more serious despite the clothing design not being entirely realistic, the political background makes it feel more plausible despite the main plot revolving around magic stones, and the minor quotes and personality traits of generic characters makes them feel more realistic than a standard "blank slate" character. Its virtues are centered largely around these very small details - the game itself is standard in a lot of ways, but the way it's presented is what it differentiates it. It should serve as a lesson to other games about how these simple-to-implement aspects can totally affect the feel of a setting.

To Sum Up:
1) FFT's "mundane" plot makes it feel a lot more plausible than the fantastic-but-disconnected plots of other Final Fantasy games.
2) While many aspects of FFT are industry-standard, their presentation makes it feel a lot more "serious" than comparable games.
3) The fact that so many of FFT's good qualities are found in subtle touches should serve as a message to people who want to design believable worlds.

Design versus imagination

Image used with permission of Jack Monahan

In a previous update, I talked about the nature of books and text as opposed to other medium. The important point in that discussion was that most mediums are limited in how many senses they can portray directly, and for the other senses things like descriptions and clues are necessary to convey what's going on. In the case of movies and games, it's sight and sound. In the case of graphic novels, it's sight alone. In the case of books, no senses are "directly" portrayed, which makes it both more creative, more abstract, and more of an exercise for the author and the reader.

However, in many cases books are not entirely text. An occasional illustration here and there may exist, providing a vague but definite framework to the series - what a character looks like, what the environment looks like, and so on. One non-book example comes from Half Life's Gordon Freeman, who is never seen (there's one picture of him but it's not identified as being him) in the game, allowing players to imagine their own ideas of appearance. This shifted with the release of Half-Life's Game of the Year edition, which put him fairly flagrantly on the front cover (compare with the original cover). This simple change turned Gordon from a faceless player-avatar (with an established background) to a definitive, recognizable individual who just happened to never talk.

The point, then, is this: even if something is largely an "imagination-based" medium, like a book or a pen-and-paper RPG, the visual design and illustration of the series establishes a framework for people to think about the game. Obviously this has positive and negative effects. It's positive because it's evocative and helps to establish what the setting is supposed to be like, giving definitive shape to characters, places, and events. It's potentially negative because it can curtail the role of imagination. This can be especially problematic with RPG sourcebooks, which are meant to represent a wider range of concepts and settings beyond what the book sets out.

This means that some very subtle differences in artistic tone and direction can totally shift the nature of a text-based medium. While these things tend to be regarded as less important than things like "good writing" or "solid rulesets", they're still pretty important in establishing a mood as long as the art styles within a given product are relatively consistent. A shift in art can make or break a mood, and while each art style is going to have its own fans, it's also going to be a different group of fans.

Compare the art of Karl Kopinski to the work of Mike "Daarken" Lim. They've both done work on Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k, but Kopinski represents the "old school" and Lim represents the newer editions. The thing to notice is that while they depict the same things, and have a lot of similar themes and tones - dramatic battles with lots of emotion and conflict - simple things like color composition and lighting make them very different in tone. It's a markedly different style, and as such has different associations in terms of the tangibility and believability of the images.

This is a difference that results even when the things being depicted are actually the same. Now let's ramp it up by comparing D&D's different editions, from AD&D to 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition to 4th Edition. You could say that the artwork has improved in technical terms, but it has also changed thematically as well. 1st Edition's artwork was very basic and medieval-derived. 2nd Edition was obviously more fanciful, but still fairly realistic - it was exaggerated and heroic, but still based in reality. 3rd Edition became more about the glossiness and stylishness of the design, going for a more "punk" approach. 4th Edition was similar to 3rd, but took the general "glossy" feel even further, making things feel more cartoonish (at least to me).

No matter which of these editions and styles you prefer, there is an obvious difference between them. The style reflects on the gameplay, because those images are there to provide a framework for the player's understanding of the people, creatures, equipment, and other things within the universe. Even if everything else is the same, the art style is going to play a major role when it  comes to a reader's baseline understanding of the universe.

I could talk about a lot of other franchises that shifted art design (Warcraft would be the biggest one), but the point I'm trying to make here is that even when the design is not explicitly connected to the product, the art choices still influence how people think about the game. The same is true for books - something as simple as a chapter illustration or cover art can provide a reference point. If it's turned into a movie, it can be even more severe, as now every part of the universe is given a distinct visual appearance.

TVTropes uses a term called Inkstain Adaptation, and while not entirely the same, it gets across a lot of what I'm trying to illustrate. If you have a vague concept, people can do with it what they like. If you have a definite concept, it's going to color their viewpoint on the franchise as a whole. Therefore, establishing that definite concept is a major concern when it comes to creating a new franchise, or expanding an existing one.

To Sum Up:
1) Visual design and illustrations can serve as points of reference even in a heavily text-based material.
2) The audience is going to extrapolate from the images they see what the rest of the universe looks like based on the style and composition of the illustrations.
3) Changing the style and illustrations can have much more far-reaching consequences than simply being "new art" because of this.