Closing Fantasy XVI situates itself inside a backdrop of swords, sorcery, and political turmoil, as its picturesque world of Valisthea is full of inhabitants complicit within the upholding of slavery. All through the land, the place lush evergreen forests, dank underground ruins, and rolling dunes are frequent sights, magic reigns supreme. Channeled by means of prodigious crystalline landmarks often called Mothercrystals, magic is the cardinal useful resource by means of which all empires–private and political, native and nationwide–are constructed. Beneath the floor, a resistance slowly builds its ranks, led by a noble turned slave turned outlaw in search of to unburden the world from the crystals, and the oppressive methods of slavery their existence has enabled for thus lengthy.
Actual-world inspirations for Closing Fantasy XVI’s injustice
That is the backdrop towards which the narrative of Closing Fantasy XVI performs. It’s an alluring setup that brings into focus why the event workforce was curious about creating the primary mainline recreation in franchise historical past to be rated Mature, one influenced by the political intrigue and grim violence of Recreation of Thrones. Whereas the sport definitely succeeds at evoking the high-wire, world-ending melodrama you’d count on from a Closing Fantasy title, I discovered that it completely fails at delivering on the promise its worldbuilding units up in telling a nuanced story about enslavement and resistance.
(Notice that this piece discusses parts of Closing Fantasy XVI in some element.)
![A graphic that reads "Spoiler Warning"](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,g_center,q_60,w_645/9b140b5128943deef31107021017c7a3.jpg)
On the earth of Valisthea, anybody has the random probability to be born with the flexibility to wield magic. These magic customers are known as Bearers. In contrast to in lots of tales of fantasy, nevertheless, magic-users, by and huge, aren’t those in energy. As an alternative, most Bearers are “Branded,” tattooed with ghastly marks that disfigure their faces, distinguishing them from common folks and marking them as slaves.
In Closing Fantasy XVI’s world, humanity progressed solely by means of the purposes magic supplies, which could be drawn from fragments chipped away from the Mothercrystals scattered throughout the land. As an illustration, somebody with out magic capacity themselves may nonetheless use a crystal to cook dinner a meal, or conjure some contemporary water. The opposite mode of development is thru the enslavement of Bearers who’re compelled to make use of their magical skills till their very life pressure is weaned away. In Valisthea, a Blacksmith doesn’t hearth their forge by means of flint and iron, however by means of crystal or the compelled labor of Bearers.
From the beginning of the sport, it’s clear that XVI’s tackle slavery is impressed by real-world historic occasions, most notably that of Black slaves in the US, in addition to points of Jewish expertise throughout World Struggle II, with the branding of Bearers serving an analogous perform to that of the yellow badges Jews have been compelled to put on in Nazi Germany.
![A supporting character in FFXVI, marked as a Bearer by a brand on his face, says "In the hideaway, we are free. Truly free. To speak as we please, when we please. And to eat what and when we desire."](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,g_center,q_60,w_645/fc1b1c23da3367466266989e429c0b70.jpg)
These are daring selections that some could discover commendable. It’s clear the FF XVI workforce was very eager on telling a narrative that’s within the human value of resistance, the atrocities of warfare, and the influence of slavery. Nevertheless, whereas the sport tries desperately to present the dehumanizing nature of enslaving Bearers, there’s a hesitancy to completely discover the debilitating toll that its existence has on human life. The sport is snug exhibiting the violence Bearers endure, in addition to the aftermath of violence, however we not often get to see how their enslavement impacts them in different, extra delicate, psychological and sociological methods. A world constructed on mass slavery suggests a social depravity that’s a lot larger than the bodily violence showcased within the recreation. Sadly, whereas the enslavement of Bearers presents an intriguing backdrop for the emotional story the sport units out to inform, it’s clear its extra curious about being a personality research of main man Clive Rosfield than in exploring or indicting the evils of slavery.
Clive: an actual human being and an actual hero
General, Clive is an extremely likable and pretty well-realized character, one who reveals extra layers of character and lived expertise than many Closing Fantasy protagonists of the previous few years. However the methods through which the sport situates Clive because the savior of this world really feel a bit misguided. Whereas the story is split into three distinct eras of Clive’s life, exploring varied pivotal moments that formed him as a one-of-a-kind Bearer who is ready to channel the ability of any of the land’s Eikons (highly effective elemental entities and this recreation’s model of the FF collection’ conventional summons), it might be extra broadly divided into two distinct narrative arcs. The primary half offers with the plight of Bearers and the efforts to liberate them undertaken by Clive’s band of freedom fighters, and the latter half with the quelling of a world-ending risk that bears a private connection to Clive and his youthful brother, Joshua.
The sport goes to nice lengths to decorate its scenes with imagery suggesting the unfair therapy of Bearers on this planet. Coming into settlements, you’ll discover retailers scolding their Bearers. As you stroll alongside cobblestone streets you’ll see a plethora of menial duties that Bearers are compelled to finish like conserving fish chilled, utilizing their magic to chop hedges, conserving a forge lit for a blacksmith, and operating errands between settlements for his or her masters. All of it screams, “Have a look at how the Bearers are poorly handled!” All of this feels a bit like window dressing although, like getting into a Disney experience full of animatronics. Slavery on loop.
![Clive declares his goal of "a better world, where men can live and die on their own terms."](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,g_center,q_60,w_645/c95bb8d9875e3ba0f0c6f4edee5ea602.jpg)
This imagery signifies to us that the Bearers have difficult lives. And whereas the builders have been in a position to think about a plethora of grounded methods through which the magic of Bearers might be exploited, they typically fail to current the identical stage of consciousness in excited about the psychology of slavery, each on the a part of the enslaved and the enslavers.
After an distinctive prologue chapter that units up Clive and his relationship to his brother Joshua, we’re introduced into the center portion of Clive’s life. It’s right here that we study he’s now Branded, compelled into navy service underneath an elite squadron known as the Bastards. It’s additionally right here that it turns into clear what the story of Closing Fantasy XVI is actually curious about.
Whereas the sport painstakingly imagines how a world run on magic may function on a superficial stage, the choice to omit the 13 of enslavement Clive experiences after his household’s kingdom was overtaken reveals the sport’s refusal to look too intently at its personal narrative conceit. As an alternative, we discover Clive on this part on, unbeknownst to him, his last day of enslavement earlier than being freed by means of happenstance by encountering Jill, his childhood buddy, and Cid, the chief of a contingent of escaped Bearers attempting to create a special world.
![An NPC in a side quest says "Who'll want anything to do with me now, eh? "There goes the Bearer-lover," they'll say. I'll be a laughing stock!"](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,g_center,q_60,w_645/5fd5c8d81c10dc96b2b8c6237f2b83b4.jpg)
It’s a wierd alternative for a recreation that’s ostensibly so invested in unpacking the struggles of Bearers. Clive exists inside a singular place; he’s from a noble household, falls from grace into enslavement underneath a rival kingdom, and in the end turns into an outlaw in search of to free the world of its chains. That is an extremely fascinating backdrop for his character. Nevertheless, we by no means get to embody the truth of what enslavement seemed like for Clive. We by no means get to see, psychologically, how this sort of life would influence him, each within the second and years after. By foregoing exhibiting us the struggles Clive skilled throughout his 13 years of servitude, the sport does the participant a disservice, lowering what needs to be the supply of Clive’s and the sport’s ethical outrage right into a mere plot level gamers can work together with in a encyclopedia entry.
And I get it. There’s one other model of this recreation that’s extremely pedantic, lecturing at gamers for hours on finish, and no person desires that. However what we get right here is the sport’s message being neutered to easily a bland, mild-mannered “Slavery is unhealthy,” with out the perception, anger, and conviction that might have come from extra intently illuminating the expertise of Clive in servitude and the financial and social methods of Valisthea that help slavery. Whereas I want I may say that slavery’s basic evil is a common reality all of us agree upon, I’m not that naive. This surface-level engagement with the lived realities and horrors of slavery ends in a a lot much less fascinating story and creates a sense that Clive–somebody who has been a slave for many years–is simply now coming to grips with simply how dehumanizing and insidious slavery truly is.
The issues Closing Fantasy XVI doesn’t see
What fascinates me concerning the world of Valisthea, one thing that’s by no means actually explored regardless of the quite a few aspect quests you may undertake that contact on the lives of Bearers and their masters, is the thought of complicity that most of the “good” guys have within the plight of Bearers. Whereas its clear from the opening hours of the sport that Clive has some discomfort concerning the enslavement of Bearers in Rosaria, I’d have liked to see extra of his evolution in considering on these topics. There’s a resistance, too, to presenting any of the “good” guys as something however that. The sport goes to nice lengths to put the participant in a world that feels grounded, a world the place folks dwell advanced, troublesome lives, one the place selecting to dwell–particularly towards the established order—is a revolutionary alternative. Whereas that is an admirable message, I believe it could be additional bolstered by presenting characters like Clive inside an arc that leaves room for uncertainty, errors, and progress.
Clive, whereas clearly a great individual, has benefitted from the work of slaves in his youth–I’d like to have seen him ruminate a bit on that. He exists inside a muddy positionality as a royal turned indentured soldier who has undoubtedly completed deplorable issues to remain alive. Not solely was Clive a slave, however the implication of his duties throughout his enslavement counsel his work helped perpetuate slavery onto others. To me, that may be a very emotionally resonant id to exist inside, however the recreation not often plunges into the ethical compromises many people make to be able to dwell inside oppressive societal methods.
![Clive and another character stand in a desert, as the character says of someone else, "Still, all those people see is a man who's lied to them all his life. One who has made a leader of himself when the world believed he should have been a slave."](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,g_center,q_60,w_645/ce299827e27e7e0263d2c1dee253eeb3.jpg)
Take Clive’s father, Elwin, as an example. He’s introduced as heroic all through the sport, and but because the Archduke he seemingly would have had the ability to liberate the Bearers in Rosalith however he hasn’t. This creates an fascinating pressure for his characterization, one which hints on the far more nuanced and three-dimensional character he may have been. However by the top of the sport, it’s revealed in a letter that he was looking for an alternate. Whereas that’s nice, it additionally feels a bit like the sport saying, “No, for actual, he’s a great man!’ When, in reality, it’s far more fascinating if he’s merely a great man to some.
For the reason that recreation maintains such an in depth lens round Clive’s experiences, omitting these years of his life through which he skilled slavery firsthand implies that we should study concerning the struggles of Bearers predominantly by means of aspect quest content material that’s by no means given the identical stage of care and a focus that the bombastic important story quests are, particularly as soon as Ultima–the world-ending risk–is launched halfway by means of the sport.
All of those points are a query of perspective and affordances, what the event workforce wished to concentrate on and what appeared to be secondary. There are definitely some fantastic moments within the aspect content material of the sport, however by putting the vast majority of the storylines surrounding the experiences of the Bearers there, the sport tells us that, truly, their experiences don’t matter–in reality, you may skip all of them collectively and nonetheless perceive the message we try to convey.
Depicting slavery in video video games is a tough factor to drag off. Why? As a result of the truth is that boiling down slavery to it simply being unhealthy doesn’t do justice to the true magnitude of its evil. I’m not asking for the story of Closing Fantasy XVI to be solely about enslavement and the liberating of slaves, however I’m asking why extra care wasn’t positioned into this key worldbuilding aspect of the sport. It appears like a missed alternative. The methods XVI conveys the lived actuality of Bearers residing in servitude suggests a failure of understanding as to the real-world, financial machinations of chattel slavery.
![Clive, in close-up, determinedly declares, "As long as there's a chance, there's a choice!"](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fit,f_auto,g_center,q_60,w_645/c0ab601d850ce57b605c6e5fdf99d6e2.jpg)
Inside chattel slavery, the slave is legally rendered as the non-public property (or chattel) of the slave proprietor. Slavery is about labor and trade, it’s about capitalism and colonization. However the recreation’s methods aren’t outfitted to really interact with the economics concerned on this facet of slavery and the way these items bleed into the general understanding of the dehumanization these practices trigger. The primary verb of XVI is fight (extremely enjoyable fight, to be clear), and with that constraint comes a variety of problems in unpacking the concepts it units forth.
In a world the place turning into a Bearer isn’t a given and even one thing that may be anticipated, in addition to a world the place not solely the Aristocracy however everybody who will not be a Bearer themselves has a chance to personal slaves to do their bidding, you’d assume that there can be extra care supplied for these folks. That is very true given the truth that assets from the Mothercrystals are depleting quickly–particularly after Clive and co. start destroying them.The worth attributed to anyone Bearer would solely develop as magical assets continued to vanish. By failing to acknowledge the financial drivers of slavery inside society, Closing Fantasy XVI’s narrative aspirations buckle underneath their very own weight.
Defeating slavery was simply coaching to struggle God
Whereas nearly each Closing Fantasy title finally ends up being about saving the world from a cataclysmic occasion, I can’t assist however really feel that when XVI shifts its focus to Ultima, the sport begins to disintegrate. Certain, the set piece Eikon battles are extraordinary (can we discuss Titan Misplaced and Bahamut?) however it’s all a bit disheartening how rapidly the desk setting within the first half round freedom and revolution will get forged apart for a fairly rote extraterrestrial villain. It feels as if the workforce wasn’t assured of their capacity to completely unpack what they’d spent so lengthy constructing.
To me, this can be a failure of creativeness. Making a god-like being who threatens the livelihoods of all folks in Valisthea is the straightforward route, however what XVI nods at every so often with out ever totally committing to it’s the truth that the enslavement of Bearers is additionally an existential risk. One that’s immediately extra relatable, and in addition far more complimentary to Clive’s quest for vengeance, reconciliation, and a special world for all folks.