What Motivates Them?

Nikkolas

Nikkolas

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Which heroes and villains in Final Fantasy had the best reasons for doing what they were doing?

There were simple explanations on both side ie. I'm the good guy so I'll save the day and I'm the bad guy so I'll destroy the day. But then there were more well-explaiend reasons such as Kuja's quest for liberation, Cloud's quest to discover who he really was and to sever the physical and mental tie between him and Sephiroth, etc..

What do you all think?
 
Well Vayne wanted to break free from the tyranny of the Gods, saying that humanity's history was ever manipulated by the ancients. Though he let things get off hand, and also he was being guided by an Ocurria as well, Venath.
 
Can we just start anywhere...with any hero or villain?

I would like to input that one Hero(ine) that I thought had a lot of motivation was Celes. I haven't played the game many times, but she was driven to find the truth, to find reason, and even to find "herself". She was pretty driven as a heroine. ^.^

It's kind of hard to just pick random Heroes and Villains... I wish I knew where to start. X__x
 
Heroes are almost always just reacting to the antagonist's actions.

Like booger said about celes she was trying to find the truth.
The heroes may have other goals, but what they are really trying to do is to stop the villain.

And as for villains, normally they want to take over/destroy the world, normally what they want varies slightly.
Vayne however is an exception, he is more of an anti-hero than a villain though in my opinion.

But the thing with villains, is they are somewhat limited, in order for the game to have a point, they have to want to destroy things, thus giving our hero a reason to stop them
 
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Julius Argexis said:
Well Vayne wanted to break free from the tyranny of the Gods, saying that humanity's history was ever manipulated by the ancients. Though he let things get off hand, and also he was being guided by an Ocurria as well, Venath.
Click to expand...

And Vayne's goal was much more admirable than Ashe's too, pissed me off you had to help the ungrateful skank :dry:

Sgt Pepper said:
Like boober said about celes she was trying to find the truth.
The heroes may have other goals, but what they are really trying to do is to stop the villain.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing that was a typo, but I lol'd nonetheless. So um, back into discussion...I always liked Zidane's motivation. There wasn't any of that cliche badass hero stuff going on, he just wanted to help his friends. In the process he started to find out clues about his and Gaia's past, so that only strengthened his resolve. Of course at the very end you had the "i r savin teh werld!" stuff, but that was to be expected after Kuja's change of plans.
 
Carnage said:
And Vayne's goal was much more admirable than Ashe's too, pissed me off you had to help the ungrateful skank :dry:
Click to expand...

Yes, Ashe didn't even knew how to rule a kingdom properly, while Vayne was like the perfect ruler of Archadia. Vayne's philosophy was somewhat like "the ends justify the means", hence why he took actions, even against anyone who stood in his way.

Illuminated by an Ocurria itself, Vayne knew that humanity was never truly free, that they were eternally bound to the chains the Ocurria had created in order to control the world. The Ocurria were the true villains of the game, not Vayne. Vayne was just, as stated above, an opposing force defending his own beliefs, just like the hero party. Ashe was just motivated by revenge and hatred against the empire that murdered King Raminas, her father. Vayne only seeks freedom, to be the true Dynast King. Ashe was always doubting, while Vayne had his mine set on a goal from the very start.

Vayne Solidor: "I bid you welcome to my sky fortress, the Bahamut. I must apologize for my delay in welcoming you aboard my ship. Permit me to ask: who are you? An angel of vengeance? Or perchance a saint of salvation?"

Ashe: "I am simply myself, no more and no less, and I want, only to be free."

Vayne Solidor: "Such a woman is not fit to bear the burden of rule. Weep for Dalmasca, for she is lost. Observe well, Larsa. Watch and mark you the suffering of one who must rule, yet lacks the power."


The battle goes on, but Vayne clearly states his position during the battle with the following quotes:

Vayne Solidor: "Your lives are forfeit, and your insurgence with them. Dalmasca will again know order. For good and all I shall bring your futile attempts at rebellion to an end."




Also Bergan supports Vayne's point of view during his battle against the party:"A fitting blade for a true Dynast-King! Raithwall did but pretend the title... a cur begging Nethicite scraps from his Master's table! Hark! Ivalice hails her true Dynast-King, Vayne Solidor! He shall defy the will of the Godssee the reins of history back in the hands of Man and ! His time is Nigh! The new Ivalice holds no place for the name Dalmasca."


One way or the other, though Ashe was defending Dalmasca, she was also playing as the puppet of the gods. Even after his defeat, Vayne had succeeded to complete his mission: to cut down the chains that bounded the humans to the Ocurria, and to give the history back to human hands. He didn't lose, for he served his purpose.
 
Yeah, Vayne is a great villain/anti-hero. But I just have one question on my mind. Why was he trying to attack Rabanastre? At the beginning of the game, after Vayne's speech, the rabanastrans were cheering for him, then at the end he attacks Rabanastre.
Why did he attack Rabanastre, when the people of that city gave respect to him?
 
Danijel said:
Yeah, Vayne is a great villain/anti-hero. But I just have one question on my mind. Why was he trying to attack Rabanastre? At the beginning of the game, after Vayne's speech, the rabanastrans were cheering for him, then at the end he attacks Rabanastre.
Why did he attack Rabanastre, when the people of that city gave respect to him?
Click to expand...

The city was not his target, even though he knew part of the resitance was fueled by the hopes of rabanastrans. Seeing no other choice than to cut the resistance down from within its roots, Vayne opted to crush the Resistance once and for all, and what better battlefield than the skies of Rabanastre, a way to show his power and teach them all that no one could escape his rule.

Vayne's attack was not directed at the city, but at the resistance itself. As he stated when he was talking to Larsa and defending his reasons to attack which can be seen in the following quotes:

Larsa: "Why this?"

Vayne: "Once they see there can be no surrender, the resistance must come at us with all they have. We will attack head on and destroy them, before the eyes of all Rabanastre."

Vayne clearly wanted to make Rabanastre another of his territories, a simple addition to his giant chessboard in which he moves his pawns to accomplish his goals. Of course, when the "heroes" attacked the Bahamut, the flying fortress was losing control, thus bound to fall on the city. The Bahamut was never meant to crush Rabanastre, but since it was flying above the city, it was logical to think it would fall on it if the sky fortress was taken down.
 
I think Tidus had the most motivation. He wanted to get the hell out and go home. Then he falls for a summoner girl, and has to try to save the world. Later on, he realizes he has to try and save her as well.

As for villains, I don't know who had the most motivation. Their goals were usually the same, to try and take over the world. <insert pinky and the brain joke here> Except Sephiroth didn't want to take it over, as much as destroy it and send it to the promised land. And Sin, who just had to destroy things because, well, thats what he does.
 
Tidus may have had motivation, but he also had a lot of anti-motivation. I don't know about you, but going on a long, arduous, dangerous and life-threatening quest to save the world
for 10 years before it starts all over again
seems a bit off putting. It's like, "Why am I doing this in the first place?"
 
i think that Yuna had good motivation for becoming a spere hunter, when she found the sphere of Shuyin and thought it was Tidus so she began searching for more and more of them. also Seymour's reason was good, although his general plan of becoming Sin was pritty screwed up, he thought that it had to be done to defend the world from massive change, he wanted to keep the spiral of death going .
 
Ah, this is a fascinating subject. I love this kind of topics. I think that if we have to turn to a villain and a hero for motivation I think FFXII is the one. Vayne was a great villain because of the way he was constructed. He had a noble goal yet he uses force to achieve it commiting the most vile crimes. He wasn't really corrupted with power but definitely used it the wrong way. Now the counterpart to him was Ashe. She could've been corrupted by power (becoming a puppet of the Occuria) but in the end she made the right choices. At first Ashe follows the Occuria's plan unknowingly but at Pharos she sees things clearly and decides to destroy the Sun Cryst because she realizes that following with her original plan would actually be counterproductive.
 
I wouldn't know which hero/villian had the best reason for revenge, or to save the world, or whatever, but one character that immediately came to mind was Cloud.

First of all, Zack gave his life to save Cloud's, even though he had been in a coma-like state for some time. That was a hell-of-a-lot of motivation for Cloud to continue down the paths he was taking. But then, FFVII came along, and Aerith was killed by Sephiroth. Now, Sephiroth was already Cloud's enemy by this stage. And as the story continued, Cloud befriended people, grew close to people, opened up eventually, and appreciated everything mainly thanks to what Zack had done for him, and Aerith's death.

Now, not saying he had the best motivation, but I think he had quite a bit to really stand out.

There are several others, but I haven't the time, so I'll come back to it. Also, I haven't completed all the FF games in the series.
 
okay, just a quick stop by to mention Tidus...he reminds me of a Teenage boy, everyone can tell that he was motivated to protect Yuna by the hope of he would get to have sex with hre, i mean come on you can't deny it. Tidus did everything he did so he could get into Yuna's Underwear (although how he would get through the chastity belt is not worth thinking about)
 
Sephiroth said:
okay, just a quick stop by to mention Tidus...he reminds me of a Teenage boy, everyone can tell that he was motivated to protect Yuna by the hope of he would get to have sex with hre, i mean come on you can't deny it. Tidus did everything he did so he could get into Yuna's Underwear (although how he would get through the chastity belt is not worth thinking about)
Click to expand...
Tidus is a teenager, most of the characters in FFs are teenagers. Yes, Tidus did like Yuna, but he wasn't trying to have sex with her. The closest they get is when they're in that lake after fighting Seymour.
Clearly he is motivated by more than just lust.
 
I think Sephiroth's motivation is pretty reasonable. I mean,
his body was infected with Jenova cells and the proximity to Jenova in the Nibelheim reactor finally set it all off, so Jenova planted all these absurd ideas in his head until s/he eventually took his mind over entirely. So really, not being able to control your thoughts and body seems like a legitimate reason to try to rule the universe.

Then again, you can't help but feel sorry for Seymour. I'd be bitter too if
my mom sacrificed herself to become a weapon.
So he, too, was basically crazy.

Gotta give the lunatics some credit, guys.
 
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