Side Post!

It's time once again for another great Recurring Fantasy Side Post.
For tonight's topic, I'm going to take a look at the different themes of Final Fantasy 9. To accompany this, I'll be posting up the character's images as taken from the starting screen videos.
Going to warn you right now, there will most likely be spoilers ahead!
Without further ado....

Recurring Fantasy Side Post Theater Proudly Presents
Dissecting the Theme of Final Fantasy IX and Cast

As I stated in my Final Thoughts, I believe the overall theme of Final Fantasy 9 to that of its main musical theme...the Melodies of Life. It's about life in general. Protecting and valuing life. Living life. Questioning life. It's all that and more. Each character deals with their own dilemma about life, and before it's all said and done, they each learn a little something. Mostly, this will be examining the idea of each of the following images as well as each character's lesson they learn.

Zidane Tribal

For Zidane, he has the power of Virtue above all. He believes in helping everybody that he can, and he doesn't need a reason to do it. However, despite this belief, he doesn't always seem to accept help. Especially during the bit on Terra, he's trying to protect everybody by facing Garland alone. By the end of it though, Dagger helps him realize that they are all together on this. He is helping them, but they want to help him as well. Virtue is a great value that we need to see more of in life. As far as the theme for FF9 goes... Virtue is a step towards protecting and keeping life safe. Next up...

Vivi Ornitier

The story of Vivi is a generally sad one of course. When he learns of the other Black Mages, he starts to question his existence. He wonders if he is real or not, and he starts to wonder about life and death. However, despite all of this, Vivi pushes on and strives to learn more about himself and his people. He goes even further to prove that not only does he exist...but he is a real living being. He learns that although death is unavoidable, life is worth living to its fullest by living and cherishing it. One might question life itself and wonder...How do you prove your existence? Maybe this is all a lie or maybe our lives are meaningless against it all. In FF9, there is a lot of times where Sorrow rains around the characters. They have to wonder if there is truly anything they can do to protect it all. If I were to relate this to life, I'd say that Sorrow is a part of life. There's nothing you can do to avoid it, but you can try your best and prove that your existence is worth it.

Garnet Til Alexandros XVII (Dagger)

For Dagger, she goes through a lot in her adventure. She runs away from her life as a Princess and isn't sure what she wants to do. After her mother's death, she wants to be Queen, but she doesn't believe in herself. She's devoted to the people, but she isn't sure if she is right for the job. Above all, the adventure taught her that she is more than a Princess...She is a person. This is a bit of a tougher one to truly relate, but the way the game goes about it...I figure it's like this. Devotion is a very strong thing. As far as life is concerned, devotion should be a big part of it. However, devotion shouldn't be so fully invested that you forget who you are. Devotion to yourself is just as important as devotion to another person or thing. If one's devotion is too strong, you start becoming like Steiner...

Adelbert Steiner

For Steiner, his devotion to his knighthood is the most important thing. He doesn't need to understand or question the orders given to him. He simply needs to serve and protect as he has sworn to. This is Steiner's line of thought throughout the first half of the game. Up until he sees for himself, he believes the Queen is only doing what is best and that he can't possibly understand why she is doing it. However, as he travels along with the rest of the group, he realizes that he has a large dilemma. Despite his devotion and fealty, must he truly spend his life serving others and not having his own thoughts? He learns that despite his service, he is a person and has to  think for himself. What he brings to the thought of life is that...we all must go through our own dilemmas. We face different problems throughout our life, and eventually, we have to solve that problem. Whether you do it alone or with help, that is up to you. Freya faces a similar situation...

Freya Crescent

Of all the characters involved, I find Freya's predicament to be one of the sadder ones. We learn early on that she is searching around for her missing love of sorts. When he finally appears to her, she is overjoyed to know he still lives, but then she is faced with something...almost worse. The man she loves has forgotten everything about his life, and this includes everything about her. She has been forgotten by the most important person in her life. Despite this horrible affair with Sir Fratley and Burmecia, she manages to push on. Why would she push on? Because she doesn't want the same to happen to the rest of them. She learns that life doesn't last forever, and we need to use our time to live life to the fullest. As for Despair, it exists all throughout our life...It comes to us in many forms, and many people do despair over the simple idea of being forgotten after death. However, despair comes and goes, and we should live our life past that. The most important thing we should realize is that life is most about living it to the fullest and not about how we are remembered afterwards. Living life to the fullest is an important thing, but we can go too far sometimes...like Quina.

Quina Quen

When you first meet Quina, you find out pretty quick...She/he is VERY self-indulgent. You find him hunting frogs in the marsh, and when you try to give him a frog, his master approaches and scolds him for not catching his own frog. Master Quan asks Zidane to show Quina the world so that he can learn more about it all. As you travel about, Quina makes a show of putting himself and his wants before nearly anything else. As the game continues though, he seems to learn and do better. He learns about different places and foods, and he eventually realizes...It's not just about yourself. Indulgence isn't a bad thing until you go too far. He finally learns that good food is about more than just the food. It's about the heart behind it and the friends you want to serve it to. As for life, indulgence can be a good thing at times, but it becomes a bad thing when you indulge yourself to the point of ignoring others' needs. You have to find the balance between too much indulgence but not enough. Despite it all, you need to enjoy life. I...I got nothing to link this to the next bit, so let's just jump here!

Eiko Carol

For Eiko, the biggest thing she wanted to get away from was her Solitude. When you find her, she's the sole living member of Madain Sari. She has her moogle family of sorts, but she is otherwise alone. With the arrival of the party, she seems incredibly happy and excited over it all. Above all, she wants them to stay with her because...she doesn't want to be alone anymore. She tags along with the group to help them out, but despite that, it wouldn't be hard to believe that she doesn't want them to leave her. Living together with others is one of the easiest and best ways to get through life. However, as Eiko learned, you can't truly learn how to not be lonely, you have to figure it out for yourself. For life, nobody wants to be truly alone for it. Solitude can help you learn something, but it isn't something anybody should be subjected to. Amarant got his own form of Solitude...but in his case, he forced it upon himself.

Amarant Coral

For Amarant, his life has been about fighting. It is all about fighting to prove his worth. In his life, he's gone fairly undefeated and this has lead to his arrogance that he seems to have. However, one day, he crosses paths with Zidane, and this messes with him. He wonders why Zidane acts like he does and why he was able to beat him. His arrogance leads him to believe that his loss to Zidane was some sort of fluke, but he eventually learns that Zidane...is a confusing individual. Zidane can't always explain the reason for doing what he does, but he always tries to live by it. In the end, what Zidane gave Amarant was time to think about it all.  Life can't always be powered through, and it's full of a certain amount of uncertainty. Obviously, this leads up to his phrase in the image. "The only dependable thing about the future is uncertainty." For life, this is most definitely true. No matter how life goes, the biggest thing you can depend on is not knowing what will happen. However, despite all this uncertainty, life is still worth going through and living. You learn to deal with the uncertainty and take the good with the bad. (Yeah...I had a hard time writing on this one, so I apologize for it right now. XD)

Virtue, Sorrow, Devotion, Dilemma, Despair, Indulgence, Solitude, Arogance...
These are just eight different things about life that FFIX tries to explore. I've taken each one and examined it, and they each have their thing to lend to the central theme, but at the same time, each item is attributed to the character and tells us a little about them. They each have their strong spot and weak points, but in the end, they each learn something about themselves and life itself. The aspects of life are beyond numerous, and the most important thing to remember is that we each have our own path. Our paths intersect with others, but in the end, we each walk our own road. The best we can do is just live our life and see where it takes us.
This has been a horrible Side Post, but I hope you all enjoyed some part of it nonetheless.

~May the Crystals Guide Me~