Indispensable characters

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Just a little thought experiment I came up with. Which playable characters are indispensable in saving the worlds of their respective games, and which could have been jettisoned entirely?

I put this thread in Sub-Final Fantasy, so feel free to analyse any game in the series. Start off by defining the game's world-threatening crisis and then move on to explaining why each character's presence is or isn't necessary to avert it. If you don't feel like making your own analysis, say why you agree or disagree with someone else's. This is all hypothetical stuff anyway. Pedantry welcome. ;)

I'll start off with VII. The crisis is meteorfall.

Cloud: indispensable. This wasn't entirely clear-cut, but ultimately I realised that any suggestion that he is dispensable would immediately descend into a spiral of what-ifs from which there would be no escape. For example: if Cloud hadn't given the black materia to Sephiroth, would the crisis have arisen in the first place? Would he have got it in some other way? What if Cloud hadn't killed Sephiroth in Nibelheim? What if Cloud hadn't triggered Sephiroth's identity crisis? You get the idea. For the sake of argument, let's assume that the plot plays out in largely the same manner without him: Sephiroth gets the black materia and summons meteor, the party travels to the centre of the planet and defeats him... but without Cloud, his consciousness endures in the Lifestream and prevents Holy from being summoned, so there's nothing to destroy meteor. RIP planet.

Barret: dispensable. Don't get me wrong, Barret plays a huge role in the plot of Final Fantasy VII, but it's not entirely unthinkable that the others could have saved the world without him. My biggest dilemma when categorising Barret was deciding whether or not he plays a vital role in persuading Cloud to pursue Sephiroth, particularly after the Temple of the Ancients. In the end, I think someone else, like Tifa, could have done it. I also had to think about whether Cloud would have discovered that Sephiroth was "still alive" if he hadn't been involved with AVALANCHE at the beginning of the game, but I'm quite sure he would have done sooner or later. Presumably he would still have decided that he had to "settle the score" in that scenario without Barret's influence. All things considered, this was a tricky one to call, and since I'm a big Barret fan, I'm quietly hoping someone will come up with a good counterargument. Here's one to think about: would Cloud have met Aeris without Barret's involvement, and would Cloud and Aeris both have done what was necessary to save the planet independently of one another?

Tifa: indispensable. Since Cloud is indispensable and Tifa is the only person capable of helping him piece his memories back together in the Lifestream, she becomes indispensable as well. Cloud might also never have tried to join SOLDIER if he hadn't been trying to impress her, which means he wouldn't have met Sephiroth, and so on.

Aeris: indispensable. Obviously.

Red XIII: dispensable. His biggest contribution to saving the planet is arguably his connection to Bugenhagen, who reveals some key plot details on the game's second disc, but I have to assume that he would have helped them anyway once meteor had appeared in the sky.

Yuffie: dispensable. She and Vincent are optional characters, which sort of gives it away.

Cait Sith: dispensable. This was another hard decision. Cait Sith's defining moment is arguably retrieving the black materia from the Temple of the Ancients, but it ended up in Sephiroth's hands anyway, so that's not enough to make him indispensable. I thought about his ability to spy on the Shinra executives as well. Without that, it's unlikely that the party would have travelled back to Midgar before heading to the Northern Crater, so nobody would have stopped Hojo from firing the mako cannon to give Sephiroth more energy. It's difficult to say what would have happened in that scenario. The city might well have been destroyed, but it's still possible that Cloud could have defeated Sephiroth and prevented meteorfall.

Vincent: dispensable. I suppose you could make an argument for him being indispensable through his back-story, but that would be getting a little too close to Dirge of Cerberus territory for my liking.

Cid: indispensable. No Cid almost certainly means no Highwind, which takes away Tifa's method of escape from Junon, her means of finding Cloud in Mideel and the party's transportation to the Northern Crater.

Conclusion: Cloud, Tifa, Aeris and Cid are the only playable characters needed to save the world in Final Fantasy VII. In my opinion. What's yours?
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
FFVI kind of gives its answer away through the game mechanics. The only characters absolutely required to beat the game are Celes, Edgar, and Setzer, though that really only applies to the second half of the game and a case could be made that Terra is also indispensable in the first half due to her being
half-Esper
. Of course, the big plot twist of this game is that
the party fails to prevent the world-changing cataclysm halfway through the game, and the second half of the game is given over to trying to defeat the world's evil god so it can begin to recover.

Can't really argue with any of your choices in FFVII.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Locke is indispensable to VI's plot if only for freeing Celes and serving as her motivation to keep living.

I think Cait Sith is indispensable, Flint, for the reasons you went over -- he knew what was going on with the cannon and knew the route to take within the city to get there. It may be that the city would have simply blown up, but had Hojo successfully fired even once, he may have killed AVALANCHE since they would have been at the crater.
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
Locke is indispensable to VI's plot if only for freeing Celes and serving as her motivation to keep living.
While this is true, I'd really say this only applies to the first half. Celes has no way of knowing whether Locke is alive in the second half and you can beat the game without Celes ever finding out that he is alive.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Right, but that's not what I mean. He's her motivation either way -- the thought that he might be alive is what keeps her going in the World of Ruin, which leads her to Get the Gang Back Together and take down Kefka.
 

Fangu

Great Old One
inb4 PENELOOOOOO

:monster:

Sooo are we doing main party members only? Hm okay I actually felt like typing. (Might be due to the fact that it's just past 7:30 am and I'm already at work for some insane reason*.)

(* They're sweeping the streets so no parking allowed from 7 am)

So the main point in finishing XII is to get the Dusk Shard (Royal Palace), Dawn Shard (Tomb of Raithwall), Sword of Kings (Stilshrine of Miriam), Treaty-blade (Great Crystal), get to the top of Pharos, watch it explode (spoilers!) and then go to Bahamut to defeat The Undying.

Vaan
Provides to plot: Picks up the Dusk Shard in the Royal Palace - something Fran and Balthier was already there to do. Convinces Balthier to go after Ba'Gamnan/ Penelo to Bhujerba. Convinces Ashe she doesn't have to blow up the world (which I guess someone else could have done instead?)
= Disposable, if you find other means to get to Bhujerba (such as Basch convincing Balthier to go - not sure what he'd promise it for him though. Treasure?)

Penelo
Gets kidnapped due to knowing Balthier (I guess Ba'Gamnan could have kidnapped Fran instead - except he probably tried that already and failed, grin.) Befriends Larsa and enlightens him re: Rabanastrian people. Befriends Ashe and convinces her to not blow up the world.
= Same as Vaan.

Balthier
Could have stolen the Dusk Shard. Provides airship for free. Knows how to get into Archades. Convinces the team to go after Cid to Giruvegan.
= Indisposable, unless you draft Fran as Cid's ex or something.

Fran
Provides info on maps and lore (Kerwon, Archades). Knows where Eruyt is, which you need to know and go to in order to get through Golmore.
= If you'd find other ways to get through Golmore, disposable

Ashe
= Indisposable. Nuf said. (Occhuria needs a Raithwall.)

Basch
No Vossler without Basch, = no help on Leviathan. Ashe would never have made it to Leviathan (through Ondore) without Basch. Ondore would not have trusted Vaan or Balthier or any of the others with the same task. So his primary role is getting Ashe out, basically. For the rest of the game, he's pretty much support for Ashe.
= Indisposable, I guess.

That was a very brief summary.

(Now I'm starting to wonder if you could have gotten through the entire storyline with Ashe and Fran only. Intriguing.)
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
Right, but that's not what I mean. He's her motivation either way -- the thought that he might be alive is what keeps her going in the World of Ruin, which leads her to Get the Gang Back Together and take down Kefka.

Well, yes, but my point is he could be dead at that point and the plot would still go along as it does in the game when Locke isn't recruited, because Celes has no way of knowing that until she finds out what happened to him. He's only indispensable in the first half of the game.
 

Roger

He/him
AKA
Minato
FFVI: Terra's indispensable, so is Locke, but I'm not sold on Edgar. Going to Figaro didn't exactly help a lot. Other then using the Figaro Castle method of transportation, he's entirely replacable in the end. And I gotta believe that outside of gameplay restrictions, there are other ways to get too Kohlingen. Terra, Locke, Setzer and Celes.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Well, yes, but my point is he could be dead at that point and the plot would still go along as it does in the game when Locke isn't recruited, because Celes has no way of knowing that until she finds out what happened to him. He's only indispensable in the first half of the game.
I think we're getting wires crossed somewhere, because I'm saying whether she knows he's alive isn't the important part for the exact reason you state: "He could be dead at that point and the plot would still go along as it does in the game when Locke isn't recruited." He's already her motivation before she finds him, and even if she doesn't before the end of your own playthrough, he's still her motivation in the ending where the player hasn't recruited anyone but the required Setzer and Edgar.
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
Yeah, see, to me, if the character could be dead and the plot would progress in the same exact way, I can't classify them as indispensable. So I guess it's just a case of incompatible definitions or something.
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
Aerith is an unusual case because dead characters in that universe can still do things after they're dead (or at least she can). There's no evidence that the same applies to the FFVI universe, however.
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Don't get hung up on death - think about what the plot would have been like if X character had never existed at all.
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
Well, if that's your criterion for indispensability, then any character that has an essential role at any point in the plot is indispensable for the entire game. I'm not sure I agree with that.
 

Lex

Administrator
I think that's the point though. You can't really define a character as indispensible for a bit of a game. If Locke is indispensible to a part of the game, then he's indispensible to the whole lot of it because had he not existed at all, the world wouldn't have been saved. That's the criteria.

So the question is: would the world have been saved if Locke had never existed? And the answer is yes or no with reasoning, there's no faffing about with halves or percentages XD.
 

Splintered

unsavory tart
imo, if the plot stops because a character isn't there, then I consider them indispensable. Tifa could have died post lifestream and things would progress the same way, for example, minus character changes.

I kind of struggle with Cid, you can easily write the Highwind being created by another person, and it's perfectly flyable without him, I mean Cloud was planning on flying the highwind by himself (how the hell does that work?). His real contribution is the fact he inspires loyalty in the crew when he saved Tifa, so I guess there's that. You might be able to write a different way to get the highwind crew to help, but that would be all speculation anyway.

I consider Barret and Basch cut from the plot-relevance cloth, as in, you need them to jump start the story, but after that they are disposable.

Without Basch there's no relevance for Noah, without Noah, there would be no "traitor" that killed the king, which drove Ashe into hiding, I don't really recall why it had to look like Basch but probably Archades didn't want to take full responsibility, thus changing the relationship between Dalmasca and the Arcadian empire.

Likewise without Barret, there's no revival of Avalanche, even if you could get Cloud to get to do plot relevant things, it means no continued attack on Shinra, which means no sector 7 dropping and capturing of Aerith, which means no going to the shinra building and seeing Sephiroth.

For XIII, only Fang and Vanille are essential to the plot, not counting the sequels. Vanille and Fang are both Ragnarok and kick start the purge. Lightning and Snow, arguable, start the short rebellion, but most of the people there were ready to fight back anyway. Serah is more important than either Lightning and Snow since she's the catalyst for the purge, the both of them are just reacting to it.

In FFVIII: um, I guess Squall? He does kill Ultimacea. Could any of the orphans have picked up the slack, I don't remember if it had to be Squall, tbh, other than the fact he's the only one that gets shit done, and he's close to Ellone.

Rinoa would count not just because she gets turned into a sorceress, which I'm not even sure how essential that is that she be the one that gets turned into it, but because she's the one that hires Seed in the first place and starts them on their journey. If Timber Owls could have done it themselves maybe she would be indispensable, but I doubt they have the money.

I suppose Rinoa, Squall would die, but it's at the end of the plot so that's fine.

Final Fantasy X: Yuna, duh, Tidus, if we must, and Auron, the best dead person around.

Final Fantasy IV: Didn't play enough of it to speak with authority. Cecil and Kain are obvious. Rosa because she's Kain's motivation. I guess Cid if we count FFVII Cid's highwind skills as indispensable.
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
See, to me, if a character can literally die at some point in the story with no change to the plot, then unless the universe is such that dead characters can still influence the main timeline of events (as is the case with FFVII), then surely the character is no longer indispensable after the aforementioned point in the plot. Idk. I guess there are multiple ways of looking at it, but to me it's perfectly possible for a character to be indispensable for only part of a plot.
 

Lex

Administrator
I think that's the point though. You can't really define a character as indispensible for a bit of a game. If Locke is indispensible to a part of the game, then he's indispensible to the whole lot of it because had he not existed at all, the world wouldn't have been saved. That's the criteria.

So the question is: would the world have been saved if Locke had never existed? And the answer is yes or no with reasoning, there's no faffing about with halves or percentages XD.

Splintered you totally Ninja'd my last post so I'm shamelessly repeating it here since we're on a new page XD.

EDIT: Responding to Aaron - well of course, but that doesn't really make much sense because if say Tifa died after the Lifestream events it still means she's indispensible because the world would not have been saved had she not played her part in the story. It's more a binary function rather than looking at the point in the story at which the character is no longer useful. If they actively play a role in saving the world, if you cannot remove them without changing that, then they're indispensible and that's it.

EDIT 2: The problem with the "dispensible after a certain point" logic is that every single character then becomes useless at a certain point. Right down to Cloud himself, to use VII as an example. The moment he strikes the final blow on Sephiroth the rest of the events are completely out of his control and he could die, which means the whole cast - by this logic - is "dispensible", because the person who actually saves the world in the end is dead Aerith. Therefore VII contains no indispensible characters. So it kind of has to be all or nothing.
 
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Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
Well, sure, if you're talking about the overall storyline then if a character is indispensable at any point then they are indispensable for the entire overall thing. What appears to have confused people is that I wasn't talking about the entire overall game for FFVI. I was specifically referring to the second half of the game with my post, because the game clearly enumerates which characters are necessary for that half through the game mechanics. Obviously you can say "well, all the characters could just die after killing Kefka therefore they're not essential LOLOLOL" but that's not the view I was taking. I was specifically looking at the events after
the world-sundering cataclysm
because
the party fails in its mission in the first half of the game
, so events in the first half of the game are beyond the scope of the question asked in the opening post, namely
Start off by defining the game's world-threatening crisis and then move on to explaining why each character's presence is or isn't necessary to avert it.
Therefore, events in the first half of the game are not dealing with the crisis in the second half, because it hasn't even happened yet.
 

Lex

Administrator
Right, so the fact that Celes needs to know Locke in the first half in order to care enough to progress the plot to the point in the second half where they're spurned on to actually defeat Kefka means that Locke is indispensible, right?
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
It means Locke is indispensable to the first half, but not to the second half. See my edit:
I was specifically looking at the events after
the world-sundering cataclysm
because
the party fails in its mission in the first half of the game
, so events in the first half of the game are beyond the scope of the question asked in the opening post, namely
Start off by defining the game's world-threatening crisis and then move on to explaining why each character's presence is or isn't necessary to avert it.
Therefore, events in the first half of the game are not dealing with the crisis in the second half, because it hasn't even happened yet.
The world-threatening crisis is
the sundering of the world caused by Kefka's moving of the statues. The party initially fails to avert this, and its actions in the second half of the game consist of moving to clean up the damage (basically by killing Kefka)
.
 

Lex

Administrator
I understand what you're saying, but I'm asking for an answer to the question of: if Locke had never existed, would the world of FFVI be saved? I'm not terribly familiar with the plot in FFVI so it's not a question I can properly answer. The point of this thread is to discuss which characters do or don't play a role in saving their own worlds, not the point at which they stop being relevant to the plot.

EDIT: In the end, like the very end. Not that thing in the middle with the fire and the world pretend ending. The actual end where Kefka is defeated :monster:
 

Ⓐaron

Factiō Rēpūblicāna dēlenda est.
AKA
The Man, V
If he didn't exist at all, then presumably Celes wouldn't be rescued, so it's debatable whether the second half of the game would proceed as it does (though some other character could possibly take Celes' role; Edgar is a prime candidate for this, as is Sabin). But I don't see any point in the opening post in which Flint asks whether the characters' actual existence is necessary for the plot to proceed as it does. The question seems to be asking which characters' efforts are "indispensable in saving the worlds of their respective games". The disagreement here seems to be over the word "presence". I specifically interpreted that to mean the character's contribution to the present-day efforts at resolving the central conflict in the story. Other people seem to have interpreted it as whether the character existed at all. To me that interpretation seems to be a bit of a stretch because you could quickly devolve into philosophising about the butterfly effect and ultimately conclude that even the "Stay away from the summoner" lady is essential to FFX, so :monster:.

to be fair I guess Flint had a thing about Tifa's role in Cloud's past so it's possible he meant the question differently than the way I read it, but I'm just answering the questions I read, not the questions Flint might have actually meant :monster:
 

Roger

He/him
AKA
Minato
For XIII, only Fang and Vanille are essential to the plot, not counting the sequels. Vanille and Fang are both Ragnarok and kick start the purge. Lightning and Snow, arguable, start the short rebellion, but most of the people there were ready to fight back anyway. Serah is more important than either Lightning and Snow since she's the catalyst for the purge, the both of them are just reacting to it.

Without Lightning or Snow, the train doesn't get stopped, without Hope Vanille doesn't bother going back into the Pulse Vestige, with no new l'Cie too brand Vanille doesn't escape to Lake Bresha nor does it get crystallised. Also, Vanille and Fang weren't the ones interested in fighting their destiny or believed they could get rid off their brands at all. Without the rest of the party there is no game, no story. Just cause only Vanille and Fang have the ability to become Ragnarok doesn't mean they are all that is needed to get to the final dungeon.
 

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Re: the butterfly effect. It's absolutely true that every Final Fantasy game's plot would have been different without any of their characters, even some NPCs, but that's not the point. If Red XIII hadn't existed in the Final Fantasy VII world, C/B/T would still have rescued Aeris from the Shinra building, they would still have pursued Sephiroth, someone in Cosmo Canyon would presumably have fixed the buggy for them even without the Cave of the Gi subplot, and eventually, Cloud would have killed Sephiroth. Therefore, even though the story would have been different, the result would have been the same.

Final Fantasy VI is a difficult one for the reasons you already gave, and it's pretty unique in the series in that regard. The "crisis" ends up being the very fact that Kefka is alive. Therefore, only the characters who are needed to defeat him can be thought of as indispensable. The best way of analysing it, I think, is to find one indispensable character and then decide if they could have averted/ended the crisis on their own - if not, who else did they need?

I'd start with Setzer in VI. Like Cid, he is necessary to get the airship. Could he have defeated Kefka alone? Possibly, but would he have had the motivation to do so without Celes? I doubt it. So that makes Celes indispensable as well. Could Celes have found a way to Kohlingen without Edgar's help? I'm not sure Edgar's presence was actually necessary to move Figaro's castle; Celes might have been able to defeat the Tentacles and operate the machinery herself. That means Edgar might not be indispensable after all. Would Celes have left the island without seeing Locke's bandana? Yes, it's even possible to do that within the game itself, by saving Cid. That, therefore, is not reason enough to make Locke indispensable. Whether or not Celes would have been alive without Locke's earlier intervention in South Figaro is a different debate. If the result of that debate is that Locke is indispensable, then we have a whole new chain: whose assistance did Locke need to get to South Figaro? And so on. That's the fun of the game. :)
 
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