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?
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?