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youngrevolutionary · 6 years

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Misplaced heroics and the tragedy of Seifer Almasy

[ This is an article published by Electric Phantasms but the website is dead. (Original link to article by Andy Astruc & Published 28 May 2014.) ]

So there’s this tall fellow with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He’s a student at Balamb Garden — a training school of sorts for young mercenaries in a world oft shaken by civil wars — and he’s dedicated to joining the Garden’s elite fighting force: SeeD. He wears a silly coat to match his silly hair, and his weapon of choice is a Gunblade, which is exactly what it sounds like. A training session with a rival student gone wrong left him with a nasty facial scar that marks the boy Handsome Yet Dangerous. He falls in love with a beautiful girl named Rinoa and, with the help of his quirky friends, offers to help with the lady’s resistance movement. This boy travels all over the world becoming stronger, making powerful friends and enemies along the way.

Now go and kill him, hero.

The above description fits both the main character and one of the primary villains in Final Fantasy VIII, of course; Squall Leonhart and Seifer Almasy, respectively. Villain might be overstating Seifer’s role, however, as he acts as more of an unfortunate antagonist much of the time. It would be easy to dismiss Seifer as yet another JRPG rival, a simple mirror to hold up to the protagonist and an easy way to add some home-grown emotion to a large scale battle against evil. But Seifer is more than that; he’s the main character, stymied. He is the would-be hero, but for a tragic collection of external and self-inflicted circumstances.

From the start of the game, we’re encouraged to develop a mild distaste for Seifer. The opening cinematic shows a battle between the two SeeD cadets, in which Seifer cuts Squall’s face open. Squall retaliates, which gives them delightful mirrored scarring, and it becomes apparent that this was just practice between two lunatics with boundary issues. This scene serves to set Seifer up immediately as a bad guy — although, at this point, not THE bad guy — and the difficult bug bite which Squall just can’t help scratching. His smug smile, the way he always seems to be a step ahead and his abhorrent turn as the head of the Balamb Garden Disciplinary Committee are all factors in your immediate dislike of the man. But it’s all about perspective, and, all things considered, Seifer’s bump from party leader to party pooper is mostly Squall’s fault.

Right from the word go, Squall is more of a thorn in Seifer’s side than the reverse. Their SeeD exam in Dollet ultimately succeeds because Seifer decides their mission to secure the square isn’t as important as finding out why Galbadian soldiers are so insistent on heading up a nearby mountain. While the act of defiance is presented as a reckless response to boredom, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s because of Seifer the Garden so successfully repels the invaders and learns of their nefarious plot to reactivate a powerful communications tower — a piece of information vital to future events. On their return, Squall and Zell are deemed to have passed the exam for their impressive ability to not die at the claws of an invincible spider robot; meanwhile, Seifer is reprimanded, punished and told he failed the exam thanks to his insubordination.

It isn’t limited to professional hindrance. At the graduation event, players meet Rinoa, a pretty young thing who is looking for help from the school principal, Cid. She’s also dating Seifer. Since Seifer isn’t a SeeD, Squall and friends are sent to help Rinoa’s resistance movement instead, and so begins that messy journey from hatred and indifference to the truest of true love. Nobody ever apologizes to Seifer for this whole girlfriend-stealing business, either, because he’s evil by the time it matters, and we don’t apologize to evil people.

Seifer’s clear devotion to Rinoa is obvious from his actions. No matter how irresponsible someone is, they don’t hold the president of an entire country hostage on an international television broadcast just for kicks. His extreme solution to Timber’s independence solution is a result of the Garden authorities tying his hands, and let’s remember that our hero was involved in a plot just as crazy and illegal; it just had more steps. On top of that, Seifer was acting out of genuine, selfless love and a desire to — at least in his own mind — do the right thing. His reward for such actions is a swift execution. Squall’s reaction to the death of his rival-slash-soulmate and the subsequent emotional breakdown of Rinoa is to shout at everyone like a spoiled child after a lengthy period of selfish internal monologue. Squall is the poster child for stunted emotional growth in Final Fantasy 8, a theme which touches all the younger characters in one way or another; more on that in a moment.

Seifer wasn’t actually killed, of course, as he reappears shortly afterward on a neon-lit parade float as the second-in-command of Sorceress Edea, suggesting that reports of his death — initially assumed to be a way to placate the Galbadians — were an elaborate farce set up for someone’s amusement. This moment, where Seifer becomes the enemy, is a junction point for quite a few fascinating facts about the character. Seifer is now the Sorceress’ Knight, a term which seems rather goofy and idealistic given the seriousness of the situation.

It ties into comments made by the character earlier in the game about his “romantic dream”. We’re talking about the more broad use of “romantic” here — the expression of love towards an idea rather than the pursuit of a person — and the subtext also suits the slightly derogatory second definition: “of, characterized by, or suggestive of an idealized view of reality.” The romantic dream Seifer alludes to before his betrayal turns out to be the rather specific desire to become a Sorceress’ Knight. Not only is it specific, it’s rather strange given that in modern times sorceresses are hated and feared. So why would a boy growing up in this social climate idealize evil witches? A lot of it has to do with a small detail that the game merely implies: Seifer is a huge fan of the old stories about the sorceress who successfully defended her country against invasion many, many years ago.

Searching the Balamb Garden library records shows he has checked out the none-too-subtle book The Sorceress’ Knight, but a more compelling fact was confirmed in the Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania, a book only ever published in Japan which includes plenty of information on the world and events of the game. In its pages, you can find confirmation that Seifer was also a huge fan of the film version of The Sorceress’ Knight, and presumably modeled his aspirations and demeanor around its contents. Seifer even bases his gunblade fighting stance on the knight from the film; we know this because the star of said motion picture was none other than Laguna Loire, and the player participates in the filming during a very odd time travel segment. Laguna isn’t a swordsman, of course, and his stance in the film is utter rubbish, which is yet another sad footnote in the story of Seifer and his blockaded attempts to be the hero. Mercifully, we never get to see the awkward moment when Seifer realizes his cinematic idol is actually Squall’s father.

So it would seem that Seifer is simply the product of his own reckless ambition and a tantrum-like disregard for authority. But a lack of control and choice over one’s own destiny is a strong theme across every part of FFVIII — cities are subjugated by powerful nations, children are recruited into armies, people’s minds are controlled by witches from the future — and Seifer’s destiny is no less directed than anyone else’s. In fact, the very people charged with protecting him as a child are the worst influences in his life.

All the main playable characters in the game, along with Seifer, grew up in the same orphanage. It’s not everyone’s favorite twist, and it comes across far neater than it should be given they began working together seemingly at random, but it does explain why Seifer, in particular, seems drawn to the group. That he is the only other character included in this backstory suggests we give its meaning more than a little thought with regards to his character. Around the time the memory sequence occurs, the characters write off Seifer’s unusual hatred of Squall as a product of jealousy. Squall monopolized the attention of another character, Ellone, on top of generally being the emotional wasteland we all know and love. But we learn at the end of the game that Squall’s involuntary time-traveling after defeating Ultimecia was the catalyst for creating SeeD. His appearance at the orphanage on that day, as a fully-grown man, crystallizes his destiny; from that point on, Cid and Edea treat him as the eventual savior of the universe.

This explains why he makes it into SeeD and is promoted to such a high level so quickly, it explains why he is sent on particular missions, and it answers any questions players might have had about why everyone thinks Squall is so damn special. Now imagine you are a child in the same orphanage, a child without a home or a family thanks to the war. Imagine you have something to prove, and reading about heroic knights and witches makes you feel a little less powerless. Imagine another child, very similar to you, is given preferential treatment. He gets more attention from your surrogate parents, and you have no idea why. You act up, and they still focus on him. When you’re all encouraged to join SeeD — mostly him, though — you see a chance to finally prove yourself. You work incredibly hard and fight to become the best, but that same person is still there, being given all the advantages. He graduates while you get punished; despite a total lack of social skills, he makes friends easily while you’re seen as an annoyance; when your well-meaning actions lead to everyone believing you’re dead, he moves in on your girlfriend.

Seifer is the one who works, and Squall is the one who wins. Earlier I said Seifer’s troubles were mostly Squall’s fault, but that’s not the whole story. Just as our perception of Seifer as an obnoxious fool is simply a mask for the twisting of his genuine intentions, so too is his distaste for Squall actually a distaste for what Cid and Edea did to both men.

Other Final Fantasy games have had characters that either should have been the hero (Basch from FFXII, before focus testing decided he was too old) or are more heroic (Auron from FFX, who only steps aside because he’s simply too well adjusted to get wrapped up in the melodrama of the plot), but FFVIII manages to set up a character that is certainly the hero, while setting him up to consistently make choices that contradict that. He isn’t a mirror for Squall, he’s the guy who has to sleep outside because Squall needed a bed. To his credit, Seifer remains an upbeat and forward-looking character to the very end. He never claims that the world is out to get him. It is, of course.

#final fantasy viii #ffviii #seifer almasy #headcanon // seifer #long post #i can't believe i've gone this long on this blog without having this posted.#because this is the perfect analysis of seifer's character #it gave me so much validation after seeing the fandom portray seifer as a 'troublemaker'#and before anyone asks no #i will never not reblog/post this #Viii // discussion

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adorye-blog · 6 years

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Title - Udoris Before

This is a fiction story set in the year 2034. This is not a prediction of the future. Please do not read this as such.

Chapter One

The year was 2034. Not much had changed since the year of 2018. Some minor adjustments here and there. Some new leaders, and remaining old leaders. *disclaimer this is not real* We managed to make a new type of energy. We created a chemical that was similar to chlorophyll and simply absorbed the sun far better than the solar panels. This posed a problem for other industries at first. There was some disputes but eventually because the chemical was easily made everyone caught on. So now you’re thinking ah yes everything was solved. Unfortunately not everything was not solved. Rebel groups still existed and still posed a threat to governments and people. Governments still posed various threats. Even citizens posed threats. One inventor was born in 2018 around this time, perhaps in the winter. He was definitely born in the winter, December if I recall. He now was 16 during this time and had inherited a considerable amount of money. During this time 2034 he and generally, all people who were young but old enough to think and implement vast ideas, decided to get into the hospitality industry. Something he loved to do. He had a very fun and care free life so naturally he wanted to impart that life on others. Because he was young and had money but not enough money to face any legal problems, he decided to make the resort a 100 percent safe. Now I’m sure you can imagine what that sounds like. Almost absolutely ridiculous. But he thought of every single thing that could be potentially harmful to the guests and eliminated it from the resort. I’m sure by now you’re probably wondering what he did about the use of bodily force. Well by now you can imagine the year 2034 not too many people were eating meat. There wasn’t very much food after the population grew to about 20 billion. They didn’t really catch onto population control. That being said, not too much food, not too much meat, paired with a lot of vitamins, enabled people to be healthy but not too strong that someone couldn’t have the ability to fend them off until help came through. All that being said he made all the food pre cut, and shipped to the resort. Everything coming in was on a, can bring list and can’t bring list. He had soft plastics that were impossible to be harmful to another person. I imagine now you are wondering what this resort would of looked like, shallow water pools, soft plastic chairs, nothing sharp, very strange I’m sure. The walls were also incredibly soft, more so like those foam beds you can sink into. I'm sure now you’re thinking that they must of felt like they were in a insane asylum. You might believe that, that’s what it looked like but no, the place was beautifully decorated and well designed. He spent a lot of money making this as well as the staff to keep everything in good shape and orderly. He brought in his families net work then, word caught on and this became a safe place for the rich. Can you imagine though, a bunch of wealthy people unable to hurt each other, just talking, some people even spent years there. The place was well organized let’s just say because the walls were so soft, you couldn’t really have sound waves travel too far. That being said that any yelling and debating that did go on didn’t really go past the room.

Chapter Two

These places became more popular, and branched across the world. Supposedly people happened to like a well run, silent, non harmful, peaceful place...believe it or not. He became very rich off of these endeavours. He decided to invest in other aspects. However every time he exited the walls of his resort he saw some sort of wrongful doing. He had an idea and to his much dismay would not be looked well upon the government. He attempted to make his own country, and instead of trying to scatter these resorts around the world. This didn’t work out the governments, no matter how much money him and his guests of his resorts threw at him didn’t really make much of a difference. The countries were set in stone they said, and they always ended the conversation with excuse me I have urgent matters to attend to. Some of these urgent matters were a war breaking out, the time was 2038 and tensions were rising. He didn’t understand why they didn’t want them to have a neutral peaceful country. Then it dawned on him who would fund their wars? He thought to himself this is a joke, an absolute joke, he rounded everyone up in a matter of a year, all the scientists, all the space people and said ok gentlemen we’re going to the MOON! Mars was having continuous and various experiments being done by the militaries, they were trying to build a proper colony. Something they couldn’t get right, they wanted to convert all the carbon monoxide that we exhaled and have a chamber that would transfer this into oxygen. One of our botanists had various plants that would be good enough for the amount of people we were bringing. The reason the governments didn’t resort to this, because in the rare chance the plants would die. So we started our journey, we didn’t have consent from the government so we just had a lift off. They didn’t threaten to take our flight down, because all the wealthy people that came with us threaten to make an economic nightmare. The governments didn’t have time to wage war with an economic nightmare so they simply just said I’ll see you when you run out of oxygen and food. They laughed to themselves of course. They knew it wouldn’t be long.

Chapter Three

Four years passed by and we were still on the moon, still happy as we were at the resort. We had a telecommunications device that could manage things from the moon. So technically we still had contact with Earth. By this time what we expected the war broke out into a mess. No one trusted each other and alliances changed only monthly, whenever this was their pleasing or advantage. This was a tragic time. Some of the people went back just to try and knock some sense into everyone. By this time, the rebels had taken over some of the countries government offices. This didn’t help peace agreements at all. Eventually because there was not enough of a normal environment to conduct business, most people stopped the flow of economics entirely. They were too afraid to go out of their houses, why would they, they had a technological garden in their home. They could 3D print any house hold appliance they needed and when the larger appliances that needed a company they just made due. The government ran out of money and workers. They tried to then force the residents to go to war but they just ended up joining the rebels shortly after. Let’s just say things were a complete mess. The world population went back down to 10 billion. There were no longer any governments remaining

“we have to go back to earth, we can’t spend our lives watching this destruction, we have to bring back the order we have to find ways to capture the rebels and bring our way of life to the people”

“It’s too dangerous”

“What are you going to wait for? Till there’s nothing left?”

“You’re right but we can’t do this alone, I’ll send word to mars there’s still soldiers there, this will be next to impossible but we will try.”

Chapter 4

Various space ships went back down to Earth and pin pointed the rebels whereabouts, they took them down. By this time the leaders had been taken out but there were the turned civilians. They resisted but we at least put them in confinement for the mean time. After this we held huge mass announcements.

“Residents of Earth, look what you’ve done, to your home, to the place that you held so dear, you have let mindless people, use mindless weapons to destroy all that you held dear. This is now what you think is best? Do you see that this is not a revolution but destruction. That you have dissolved the government and for years what have they done to make your lives better? There is no order, there is no grandeur. You have been caught between two lunatics. Fighting for something that in the end have destroyed. We’ve come back to pick up the pieces to your disillusioned dreams. We have been living peacefully on the Moon for years now we will help you build back your world and what is left of it.”

We brought out the robots for a short time. We asked everyone to remain in their houses for the time being, over the years we made self building and self directed robots. There was much debate about our concept of a harm free home, however they didn’t have anything at the time and this is all we knew. We built for a full year making dense cities. There was no point in spacing out the land because everything was mostly rubble. We figured we would make the earth habitable first. We connected these main cities with high speed transportation. Each city was respective of the cultures that used to be in place. The language was not lost, a lot of the artifacts were but so much was on the cloud that we brought back to life fake replicas, mostly holograms to stay in tact with our soft objects mandate. When the civilians came out of hiding while the main cities were being built, we then tore down all the half rubble homes. We let nature do the rest.

Chapter 5

A lot of people were traumatized by everything. Previous rebels were brought back to the societies after various years and were given a new home. We taught them a way of life. A lot of them, due to their rebel nature felt that having these few and condensed cities were great and all but they did not want to live here. They wanted to create architecture, live differently, have hard things back into their life. Not because they wanted to hurt each other but because they felt their freedoms were limited. Most the world outside of our condensed cities were nature. We enabled them to go, because we weren’t a governing body, we couldn’t hold them hostage to our cities either. We gave them a few supplies and told them you must not make weapons or we will no longer let you live there on your own. You still have technically committed crimes and therefore under the old laws would be imprisoned for a lengthy amount of time. So we are letting you be free to create not because we want you to start what you have done all over again. But simply because we are understanding of the circumstances that led you to do what you have done in the past. All that being said, we hope that you will not pose a threat to the peaceful cities we have created. If you do pose a threat, we will treat you as a threat.

#story #fiction #writer

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