Old game character archetypes
Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 2:01 am
Hello, greetings fellow old timers , I have recently regained interest in old games and have a question for you kind folks. The subject is RPG themes from '87 to '97. There's some kind of archetypal thing?
Final Fantasy 6, 7; Phantasy Star 4; Lunar 1+2: main enemy is male and has some kind of androgynous thing going on and is aligned with forces of chaos or uncreation. FF5 I think is in this category too, I can't quite recall. The enemy was the Mu/Nothingness. Kefka turns into an androgynous angel of uncreation...Sephiroth is effectively the same, and given a character name more or less clear about "magical creation/uncreation"...Dark Force in PS4 goes through male and then finally female forms only to be revealed as a devouring inhuman force of chaos in its final battle form...Ghaleon is a cute witchcraft elf then turns into an cute evil witchcraft elf. ...Zophar more or less is presented as androgynous and Zophar's Domain is visually presented as a kind of demonic womb. ...Same with Garuberk Tower, PS4.
Lunar 1+2, FF 6+7, and Grandia have female characters who are metahuman demigods with restorative powers; these powers are also subject to being tapped/controlled by the enemy or theoretically by good. Luna's powers are tapped by Ghaleon, Lucia's powers are tapped by the Blue Star fortress and Blue Spire or she somehow interacts with them...and Lucia is then crystallized as an energy source by the squid dragon thing after she claims the power of creation in the Goddess Tower... Terra is under evil control, is freed, then eventually morphs into a pink esper... Aeris is more or less presented as Persephone [Greek] ... and drops the Holy Materia when she's killed by an androgynous agent of chaos. ...Leen is an Icarian who's under evil control [Leen is Terra transplanted into a different videogame with plot points rearranged]
Both male bad guys and female heroines have a shapeshifting ability to some extent, or are something then revealed as another.
Is there a religious cultural tradition in Japan that this comes from that a person could clearly point to and say "it's that"? Is there a certain old religious or myth source? The male-androgyny-chaos-unmaking of creation thing and the female-divine-goddess-restorer thing.
So okay, Phantasy Star doesn't do this female divine magic thing. Alis/Nei/Alys/Rika aren't really magical. Nei/Rika bioengineered and very empathetic but...not magic.
Is there a specific figure of Japanese myth that's some kind of androgynous identity/shapeshifting male satan figure? And is there like a ... female identity/shapeshifting christ figure?
Closest I can come up with is some kind of karmic rebirth thing ... the re-incarnations of Luna/Althena in Lunar? So the whole arrangement of archetypes is partially Buddhist?
Hope you are all having nice days
Final Fantasy 6, 7; Phantasy Star 4; Lunar 1+2: main enemy is male and has some kind of androgynous thing going on and is aligned with forces of chaos or uncreation. FF5 I think is in this category too, I can't quite recall. The enemy was the Mu/Nothingness. Kefka turns into an androgynous angel of uncreation...Sephiroth is effectively the same, and given a character name more or less clear about "magical creation/uncreation"...Dark Force in PS4 goes through male and then finally female forms only to be revealed as a devouring inhuman force of chaos in its final battle form...Ghaleon is a cute witchcraft elf then turns into an cute evil witchcraft elf. ...Zophar more or less is presented as androgynous and Zophar's Domain is visually presented as a kind of demonic womb. ...Same with Garuberk Tower, PS4.
Lunar 1+2, FF 6+7, and Grandia have female characters who are metahuman demigods with restorative powers; these powers are also subject to being tapped/controlled by the enemy or theoretically by good. Luna's powers are tapped by Ghaleon, Lucia's powers are tapped by the Blue Star fortress and Blue Spire or she somehow interacts with them...and Lucia is then crystallized as an energy source by the squid dragon thing after she claims the power of creation in the Goddess Tower... Terra is under evil control, is freed, then eventually morphs into a pink esper... Aeris is more or less presented as Persephone [Greek] ... and drops the Holy Materia when she's killed by an androgynous agent of chaos. ...Leen is an Icarian who's under evil control [Leen is Terra transplanted into a different videogame with plot points rearranged]
Both male bad guys and female heroines have a shapeshifting ability to some extent, or are something then revealed as another.
Is there a religious cultural tradition in Japan that this comes from that a person could clearly point to and say "it's that"? Is there a certain old religious or myth source? The male-androgyny-chaos-unmaking of creation thing and the female-divine-goddess-restorer thing.
So okay, Phantasy Star doesn't do this female divine magic thing. Alis/Nei/Alys/Rika aren't really magical. Nei/Rika bioengineered and very empathetic but...not magic.
Is there a specific figure of Japanese myth that's some kind of androgynous identity/shapeshifting male satan figure? And is there like a ... female identity/shapeshifting christ figure?
Closest I can come up with is some kind of karmic rebirth thing ... the re-incarnations of Luna/Althena in Lunar? So the whole arrangement of archetypes is partially Buddhist?
Hope you are all having nice days