Character
After a decade of playing Final Fantasy Series - Final Fantasy VI, I decided to re-explore the story and character development. I found meaningful story that I did not experience when I was a teenager until recently.
Introducing Terra Branford, a young girl who has no idea who or what she is and is conflicted in the war era (She is a mixed - half human and esper). The fact of being a mixed, she was born with the gift of magic. She was raised as a living weapon and experiment as the Empire developed Magitek. Controlled and enslaved by the Empire, Terra spent most of her young life as a slave. She is confused and fearful and has amnesia due to side effect of control device. Yet, she is sweet, feminine, but still an empowered young woman. She protects the things and people she cares about.
Her story
Though this is just a fictional story from a video game, I view Terra’s feelings and her struggles reflected some of the social issues in the real world. Inspired by Terra, I decided to reflect on how Terra empowers us as a person or gamer, how she is in more prominent role than other Final Fantasy Series protagonists.
As I mentioned above, Terra suffered amnesia. After she regains all her memories and gains better control over her powers, she becomes more proactive in aiding the Returners to try and establish peace between humans and espers.
However, she still rejects her power due to her witness of the Empire has used magic for war. She feels that others are hungry for power only to fight.
As the story continues to develop, Terra fully accepts her powers at last when she defends the children of Mobliz from Humbaba (Final Fantasy VI). Realizing she loves the children, an emotion she was afraid she was incapable of feeling, Terra rejoins the party to defeat Kefka (one of the Best FF Antagonist) and create a better, peaceful world for the kids.
She was confused who or what she is but now fully human due to her love for the children of Mobliz. Her courage and resolve are settled. Savoring freedom at last, she is determined to use her powers as needed — not to destroy or cause war, but to help and protect the world and people. In the story, she ultimately makes the decision to sacrifice herself so that other could live. After successfully achievement goal by helping her companion, she almost died but she was saved by her companions in the end.
Progressive, Freedom, and Love
To me, Terra is a young girl who struggles to come to terms with her identity. By exploring the truth, she is able to feel confident in who she is and persevere to protect those who she holds dear. This strongly implies progressive.
She very easily could have become an evil person with her special powers, but instead, she becomes a person desperately needs the people around her, and is willing to become a hero through sacrifice and help.
With all these traits, she is truly empowering us. Terra symbolized life, dreams, and hope. She might be portraying our life with struggles. Yet, one did not give up and keep searching for the hope.
Due to her struggle and growth, she ended up has a substantial character arc as the story of Final Fantasy as well as in the franchise. Either way, she stands out as the one I feel is the true protagonist of the game. Final Fantasy VI is not just a sole JRPG with a full of brave new adventures and ideas but what makes it so innovative was the emotion realized from drama within the game in addition to those other elements. In fact, there are some Final Fantasy series that have similar composition.
Terra's theme music by Nobuo Uematsu, one of the best music composers in the game industry.
