FFXII
Lately, I've been indulging in Final Fantasy XII. I don't normally venture into Japanese Role-Playing Game territory for the simple reason that the signification of homoeroticism is impishly lampooned as though it's necessary to pass some sort of heterosexist censorship board. Oh, and there's also the poor translation and confusing mix of hyper-sexualisation and mega-cuteness. FFXII is no stranger to this dyad.
The absence of a "sappy love story" allows the narrative to unfurl around a political intrigue, which leaves one feeling slightly less perverse. But the homoeroticism of the game is coupled with a carnivalesque aesthetic that lets the characters and storyline firmly square off against a reading of it as merely Japanese camp. Sure, the seventeen year old protagonist Vaan has scripted lines that get on your nerves through their idiotic vanity and pettiness; but we were all seventeen once.
Perhaps the strangest feature of the game as a whole is the way that the class struggle/caste system unimaginatively conforms to a conservative Marxist reading. The aristocratic men are all mystics and perverts, the women are precocious hysterics; the working class city-dwellers' commentary seems strangely void of gender for most of the game (if ever a Maoist population there was), while the charismatic rogues are aloof and perform like knaves. No one really seems to want to change their position, and the 'struggle' of class and status is hegemonised by whatever ruling authority happens to be in power, i.e. early on in the game, when the king of Dalmasca is killed and the invading empire send their new consul, Lord Vayne, to rule the occupied capital of Dalmasca, Rabinastre, a scene ensues wherein Vayne 'charismatically' turns a potentially violent crowd into his allies with an oration lasting a few short minutes. Thucydides couldn't have wished a better oration. But what it signals is that this game is about changing the world, it's about keeping it going through its dysfunctionality. The more dysfunctional an in-game character is, the more typical they become.
And, just like capitalism, you must labour in service of the game to gain sufficient capital to spend on various lisences, elixirs, and equipment to advance in the narrative.
Labels: FFXII, gender, videogames


