Cecil Harvey: A man, a hero, a question...

Seiya Wataru

Seiya Wataru

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Following a rather lengthy discussion with a good friend of mine I was prompted to post this new thread. When talking quite vaguely about FF protagonists it seemed that the conversation drifted quite frequently towards Cecil, the tortured, self-sacrificing protagonist of the fourth installment in the Final Fantasy series. My good friend believed that out of all the protagonists of the FF series it was in fact Cecil Harvey that appeared to be the character that was more "complete" in terms of personality, backstory and a number of other factors. I myself have no arguments in favor of, or contrary to this idea.
Mind you, I highly regard FFIV and place it in my top 3 alongside VI and IX. In any case I would like to hear from you.

Please note however we are not talking about whether or not we like the character, that is immaterial.
 
I love FF IV, but words like deep and developed aren't ones I'd use to describe him. He's a good character, but there's not a whole lot there. He just doesn't develop nearly as much as characters like Terra, Cloud, Squall, Zidane, Tidus, etc., granted that's probably due to the game being older and them not being able to fit as much dialog in it, but its still a bit of an issue. The problem is that he has the inner struggle bit going on as a dark knight, but after becoming a paladin he becomes pretty one dimensional, not speaking much and not really having any sort of inner conflict to deal with. He shows more personality in what I've seen in Dissidia than all of the paladin portion of FF IV.

Once again, its not that I think Cecil is a bad character, just not very well developed in his game after the first few hours.
 
While many main FF characters have had inner struggles (Cloud, Zidane), Cecil's took a more physical form. He literally had a dark side, and had to physically fight himself, which is a step further than has been attempted before or since.
However, that aside, I see no other reason to state Cecil's character as complete. Him having two forms was great, and really showed the inner struggle and the major change of light being victorious over the dark side, but I don't believe he had any more character development than the heroes of the games that followed.

For his time, however, he could have been considered as pretty deep.
 
Actualy they, in my opinion attempted to show the inner struggle again, with the main character, in FFVII. Though it was more of a struggle with memories. But then if you think about it memories play a huge role in FFVII. Though for FFIV's time Cecil was as developed as you could get. They really couldn't fit alot into the old snes cartriges which, in my opinion, not only hindered FFIV but may other great games from that era of gameing.
 
Cecil is a favorite of mine, just putting that out there before I give you my honest opinion.

For me, I believe that Cecil was very well developed, though I agree with anyone else that says there could have been more. I feel like other heroes such as Zidane, Squall, Cloud, get a lot more depth and backstory. With Cecil, amazing as he is- I felt rushed when I played through the game. Like, there should have been more struggle and story. He managed to overcome things on his own- which is great, but I think I would have been happier seeing more help from his love interest. (Not to say she didn't help. You see Garnet impact Zidane a lot in the game. You see Rinoa change Squall's character completely. You see Tifa unlock Cloud's memories and feelings, and Aerith lift his guilt for her in AC. Tidus and Yuna speak for themselves- what a strong bond of love they have.) I also felt that Cecil was kind of... Gary-Sue like.
Omfg, the light- IS MY FATHER?! .... OMG? Golbez... my BROTHER?! .... OMG, I'M A LUNARIAN?
It got to the point where it was a little tiresome and predictable.
 
Yeah, nes/snes where not the greatest to tell background stories. There just wasn't enough room for that and the actual story of the game. Like I said not enough room on the on cartrages for things like that. Though I do enjoy FFIV the game did feel rushed and like you said predictable at times. I wouldn't mind if they went back and redid that story. I don't mean like they did with the DS version where they added no graphics/voices and other frills, but added and retold the actual story of the game.
 
I think Square did a good job in IV of commenting on the human condition as a whole; none of the characters are really well developed (Only Golbez, Kain and Cecil approach anything like depth) but as an ensemble they represent all that is good in humanity: Rosa's devotion, Rydia's perseverance through tragedy, Yang's nobility, Cid's quirkiness, Palom and Parom's innocent exuberence and sacrifice, Tella's paternalism, Gilbert's love, Edge's swagger and FuSoYa...well he is just a Deus Ex Machina, but you get the point. Although few characters have as much meaningful impact as do the ones of later installments, as a whole they say an awful lot.

D4D
 
I thought Cecil a good character, but complete? No, not really. I agree with the others that while he had a good story with the dark and lights sides which was reflected in the crystals themselves, I felt they could have done more with him in a more realisitic light after his transformation. I personally liked the concept of his transformation (although definitely not the new popsicile-purple lips, blah) but afterwards it did seem very predictable afterwards. Still, I liked the whole concept of light and dark sides.
 
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