Square Enix created a series of worlds designed to push the player’s understanding of how social development and interactions could be crafted within the Japanese Role Playing Game genre of video games. The three continents of World A from Final Fantasy I (FF I) to the lonely star known as Eos in Final Fantasy XV (FF XV) provide the backdrop for all of the action that takes place within the game. Players enter a rich cultural experience throughout the series and, in turn, players care about the lives that the different player (PCs) and non-player characters (NPCs) go through during the game. These environments and personas represent an almost “mirror world” as it reflects the different eras found on Earth with all of the various forms of strife that existed in our world.
Final Fantasy, as a study in social psychology, represents a complex challenge as the game designers essentially create a new world and society for every version of the game. Few narrative threads connect the overall series. The more significant connections come from the traditional good versus evil battles that are found in Japanese mythological storytelling (along with some references to Judeo-Christian and Islamic religion in character creation). Also, the symbolic components of crystals, life force, and the apocalypse are embedded in the overall storyline. These narrative supports described above built the spiritual overtones that most players of the series would recognize as core to the gaming experience. A broader story arc, which will be the arc examined by this chapter, is the influence of technology within the cultures and societies of these games. The rationale for this analysis is that as the series progressed from FF I to FF XV along an almost similar technological development curve to Earth with the exception that Earth-based technologies were not built upon the foundations of magic or spiritual influences.
This broader discussion of technology is not merely to look at how technologies drive the various nations from the Final Fantasy universe. That level of debate would fail to examine fundamental psychological phenomenology and theoretical concepts. After all, the PCs and NPCs are motivated more by the game designers’ algorithms and narratives than the more baser psychological drives of man. This writing instead will use a few of the critical worlds from the series as a model to explain how technology influences human behavior in the real world. Final Fantasy as a series raises the problems people experience with technology on a day-to-day basis. Technologies in their most basic form represent a power structure and cultural mindset that people have accepted as part of the norms of society. These power structures and cultural mindsets are made explicit when the players play these games.
This critical discussion of technology will need to be framed by the right set of theories. It seems that these worlds could use the work of philosophers to examine vital socio-technical concerns. One philosopher in particular, Martin Heidegger, would provide a good grounding for this discussion because of his work on technology and modern society.
Heidegger & Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was one of the more influential German philosophers of the 20th century. His work challenged the traditional philosophical arguments of René Descartes, who stated “I think, therefore I am.” One of the major themes of Heidegger throughout his work was to move away from the individual mind and move toward a common experience that all humans share, which is death.
Martin Heidegger’s central thesis is based on a mental model that nature is merely an object that can be manipulated by human beings. It is with this thesis in mind that technology acts not simply as a means to an end or even a natural by-project of human activity. Technology is more than the physical items that perform the day-to-day actions within society. Technology has an essence that acts as an underlying spirit that defines the human condition. The essence of technology reveals the truth of the nature of man. Part of this revealing is that human beings are social objects that engage with the world in order to make their “semi-permanent” mark in society. The rationale for this engagement is that people are aware that they are finite.
Every person who ever lived will eventually die.
It is with this fundamental truth in mind that people, according to Heidegger, attempt to become what they are within the constraints of the natural world. Heidegger refers to this attempt as the “dasein.” Dasein is more than the everyday consciousness that people are aware of the world around them. Dasein is being “in the world” to the point that people feel connected beyond themselves to the colossal social and natural order. This definition of Dasein fits well with larger tenets of Chinese and Japanese philosophy. Heidegger specifically was influenced by Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi’s thinking about living in harmony with others and nature through the practice of following the Way (Dao).
Locke Cole from Final Fantasy VI is a perfect example of a character that practices Dasein. Cole is fighting against the controlling order that the Gestahlian Empire represents control within the game. His actions attempt to bring back beauty to the “World of Ruin.” Cole heals a seagull towards to the end of the game as a means of bringing life where death is the norm. He provides moments of humor during the more serious parts of the game. Heidegger refers to those actions as bringing “techne,” or art, into the world of darkness.
Dasein essentially fights against the concealing nature of technology. Technology conceals the world as it helps turn objects in the world into “raw materials” for the purpose of meeting the needs of production and manipulation to serve a given social power or hierarchy. The natural world is concealed through the manufacturing of products that make up societal needs. For example, many of the rare earth metals found in the ground are excavated, processed, and turned into the screens for our smartphones. This mining of materials is part of an overall process designed for societal control. Companies destroy the land to sell products. The revenue from those products provide those companies power and influence in the minds of consumers and society as a whole.
It is this level of conflict between man and nature that Heidegger acknowledges in his theory of Gestell.
Gestell
Gestell is how society should understand its relationship to technology. People must examine the underlying functionally of individual pieces of technology and their connection to the larger concept of technology in society. Each individual tool that a society uses speaks to the sweeping goals of the ruling class and power structures within that society. The primary technology of the modern age is the smartphone. The smartphone is created using the process described earlier in this chapter. Smartphones connect to a communication grid that is controlled by massive telecommunication corporations. Those corporations were given their licenses for the towers, for the broadcast frequencies, and to sell their services by the government. Government can “tap” the communications between people through the ability to control this piece of the infrastructure.
This “enframing” of modern communication systems means people can remove some of the mysticism surrounding the technological tools of our time to get to the essence of technology. Technology holds sway over citizens when they fail to understand the interworkings of those tools. Technology and the actions associated with technology must be separated to regain the person’s Dasein.
Heidegger essentially refers to motors and their assembly when discussing this enframing.
“On the other hand, all those things that are so familiar to us and are standard parts of assembly, such as rods, pistons, and chassis, belong to the technological. The assembly itself, however, together with the aforementioned stockparts, fall within the sphere of technological activity.”
It is not an accident that Heidegger’s name feature prominently into Final Fantasy VII as one of the antagonists the PCs face. Greg Littmann (2009, 109) in “Final Fantasy and the Purpose of Life” chapter of “Final Fantasy and Philosophy” remarked: “Particularly observant players of Final Fantasy VII might recall that the name ‘Heidegger’ is also shared by the head of Shinra’s public safety maintenance department. There is little reason to believe, however, in any significant connection between the two.” Littmann’s footnote seems fair with regard to the direct connection between Heidegger the NPC and Heidegger the philosopher. It is harder to argue that there isn’t a significant connection between Heidegger’s central thesis described earlier in this chapter and Final Fantasy’s positioning of technology throughout the course of the series. Using a Gestellian, and not a Gestahlian, mode of analysis will help prove that Heidegger is embedded in the psychology of the game and what lessons players can take from the game designers’ decisions to incorporate this German philosopher into the various worlds covered by the series.
