The story of two competing empires going to war isn’t strange in either fact or fiction. It is a scenario that is pretty much destiny because both sides want to be the one major power. Sometimes the war results in all out conflict, and sometimes these conflicts play out in a more cloak and dagger fashion.
However, while these major powers go to war, the smaller nations often suffer the brunt, with their own cultures, cities and ways of life falling under the rule of one side or another. This is the fate of the Kingdom of Dalmasca as the Archadian Empire invades and quickly subjugates the small nation.
It’s not the first nation to succumb to the Archadian Empire and if Vayne Carudas Solidor has anything to do with it then it wouldn’t be the last. While on the surface it appears that Vayne is purely in this situation to expand the borders of Archardia, and get rid of the Rozarrian Empire, he is on a mission that is much grander in scope. One that would impact the lives of every single person in Ivalice. Vayne is fighting to free all of humanity from the Occuria, the ones who control the fate of everyone to live pre-determined lives.
Vayne’s own position is one of privilege and the Occurians have given him a decent life, but when he finds out that no one is the master of their journey this angers him. Vayne is a person who likes power and wants to earn as much as possible with it, but when he learns he didn’t have a choice in this it would have angered him. Imagine believing that everything you’ve done has come from your own hard work and perseverance, then you learn that in fact some entity you’ve never interacted with did everything for you. When he came to that conclusion Vayne must have wondered what the point of life was, and if he was just a plaything.
So Vayne learns that everyone is essentially controlled and imprisoned on these determined paths, but he doesn’t have the power to fight the Occurians by himself. Even Archadia with all of its military might doesn’t have the power, so Vayne does what he feels is the best course to free all humans. He goes to war to unite all of Ivalice under one flag which would move the war from human vs human to Ivalice vs Occurians.
Of course he doesn’t state that intention to the public because who would believe him really? Sure people believe in gods and believe they have some control over fate, but if a leader of a nation comes out and says they want to unite all of Ivalice so they could win a war against gods there would be so much chaos. Vayne would be classed as insane and many would use that as an opportunity for a coup d’etat, shaking Archadia to its very foundations. In that tumultuous period the Rozarrian Empire would be able to launch a full scale invasion.
That invasion would be possible as the Archadian military would crumble into different factions, such as those who support Vayne, those who want him deposed, and even those who may want a republic instead. Vayne must keep his knowledge to himself and appear as the invader who only wants more land and riches, because that is what people expect even if they don’t want it. If Vayne diverges from that script and does something unexpected people would lose their minds. A leader goes to war with other countries, not gods.
Of course the other characters just see Vayne as power mad and a danger to Ivalice, so they band together against him. Vayne tries in his way to make them see that what he is doing is for the betterment of the people, but they just won’t listen. Vayne doesn’t choose to fight against this group, including his brother, but he does because he realises that their deaths would be a small sacrifice in his own war against the Occurians. From his perspective it’s either die and let people continue to be playthings or fight back against those who defy him, kill them, and move on to something that changes everything.
Due to Vayne being the ‘bad guy’ he does in fact lose and everything returns to tranquility as the two Empires enter a state of peace, halting the war. The war’s end means a lot fewer people killed, but it also means that, even though people don’t know it, they are being controlled. Vayne wanted to change it, defy Fate itself and bring true freedom to the world, but he tried to do it by himself instead of rallying everyone to his side early.
Vayne wanted to be the sole hero, but it was that vanity that lost him everything.
Steelhead
Good article. It puts a very interesting spin on one of the less impressive Final Fantasy villains. From this perspective the heroes actually prevented Ivalice from achieving a larger form of freedom, but then why should their homelands sacrifice their personal freedoms to satisfy Vayne’s inferiority complex?
a inferior race
This sounds nothing like the game which I.played which was really boring and I had to force myself to complete. I honestly can’t remember the gods being in this at all.
Old School
To me this game was the start of the Final Fantasy. It was a huge world with nice graphics but the story was mind numbingly dull. It was way to political for a FF game. Balthier is the only character who I really remember.