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Final Fantasy VII Is Not A Socialist Fever Dream - DetroitOtaku Rants

DetroitOtakuAug 12, 2022, 2:25:09 AM
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What the hell, let's piss everyone the hell off today. I'll start off by saying this:

Final Fantasy VII.

Is not.

Pro-socialist.

That's to all the tankies and radical leftists who never even played past the first disc of the game. 

This whole idea that Final Fantasy VII is some sort of socialist wet dream comes from the opening part of the game where you start off in Midgar where Cloud is helping out Barret, Tifa, and the rest of AVALANCHE fight against the Shinra Power Company, the de-facto ruler of the town of Midgar as well as the rest of the in-game world. Shinra serves as a secondary protagonist to Sephiroth throughout most of the game.

But Shinra is more than just a corporation., and Cloud and the gang are not Bolsheviks. 

One of the main themes of the early stages of FFVII is that of environmentalism. AVALANCHE are fighting against Shinra because of how their Mako reactors are killing the planet's life force, which is referred to as the Lifestream. The Lifestream is a flow of spiritual energy that gives life to everything on the planet, and its processed form is known as "Mako", hence the name Mako reactor. This is where many Tankies and Bernie Bros get the idea that FFVII is some sort of leftist fever dream, but I'm gonna stop you there for a moment.

Environmentalism was a popular theme throughout the 90s, but it is not exclusively left or right. In fact, there are plenty of environmentalists on the right as well throughout history - Republican Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, was an environmentalist. Tom McCall, another Republican who was the Governor of Oregon from 1967-1975, was also an environmentalist, and he was the one who got Portland to demolish the Harbor Drive freeway in 1974 in favor of a waterfront park named in his honor. 

Republican William Milliken - Michigan's longest serving governor, was also an environmentalist, and Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Like I said, environmentalism is not exclusively left or right.

But what about Shinra, you ask? They're a giant megacorporation who rules the world! And Cloud and the gang are fighting against them for most of the game and they even come close to having them executed on multiple occasions! Surely that must mean this game is pro-Socialist!

No.

Quite the opposite, actually. If anything, FFVII is anti-monopoly, anti-cronyism, and anti-tyranny. 

"But Shinra rules the world!" - Average tankie

That is true, and to that I say: so what? Because throughout human history there have been examples of corporations controlling towns, and even entire countries! No, I'm not making it up. In fact, I'll drop you the best possible example, and this is a historical corporation that Shinra itself was likely modeled after:

The British East India Company.

If you weren't sleeping through your history classes in middle school or high school, you may have heard of them before. During its existence from 1600 to 1874, the British East India Company dominated colonial India. The BEIC had its own army, its own territory, and like Shinra, it had a monopoly on a highly sought after resource - tea. The company conquered the Mughal state of Bengal in 1757, and Robert Clive, the head of the company's army, became its governor and collected taxes and customs, which were used to purchase Indian goods and export them to Britain. They also annexed other regions of India by force and forged alliances with territories they couldn't conquer. Not only that, they also used slave labor throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. 

At it's peak, the British East India Company had a standing army of 260,000 men (more than double the size of Britain's standing army), they were responsible for almost half of British trade, and the company's shareholders elected "merchant-statesmen" to dictate policy in its territory, a position I am sure I don't need to explain any further.

Notice the many similarities between Shinra and the British East India Company. They both had their own armies, conquered neighboring territories, and had a monopoly over highly sought after commodities. And they also had another thing in common:

They also caused events that led to major revolts against their actions.

Shinra's actions caused not only Cloud's gang, but also Sephiroth, to revolt against Shinra, which led to their collapse near the end of Disc 3 with Professor Hojo's demise. So...does that make Sephiroth a socialist? I think not. 

The British East India Company's actions caused a major world event - they had government granted competitive advantages over American tea importers to sell tea from its colonies in Asia in the Thirteen Colonies. This led to one of the most famous events in American history - the Boston Tea Party, which ultimately led to the Revolutionary War. So was the American Revolution a socialist rebellion? 

The British East India Company's monopoly was government granted. Many monopolies throughout American history were government granted. 

While Shinra may not be a government granted monopoly per se, they, like the East India Company, conquered neighboring territories across the entire planet, basically BECOMING the One World Government in that game (Conspiracy theorists of the world, unite!). Shinra was also inspired by the Genom Corporation in the 1987 anime OVA series Bubblegum Crisis, which was likely another potential inspiration for FFVII.

In fact, lets talk about Bubblegum Crisis a bit. 

As mentioned earlier, Shinra appears to have also been partially modeled after the Genom Corporation in Bubblegum Crisis. And like FFVII, Bubblegum Crisis is not a pro-Socialist wet dream. It is anti-monopoly, and anti-cronyism. 

Genom also basically became the de facto world government, and if you've watched Episode 6: Red Eyes (1989) of Bubblegum Crisis, you should see one member of Genom saying that Genom is the ruler of the world. Genom not only took over cities, states, and countries, they also absorbed other corporations and made them subsidiaries TO them - one example can be seen in Episode 4: Revenge Road (1988), in the scene where Priss is chasing down the guy who is mowing down bikers in a modified supercar. In that scene, you can see clearly on Priss' bike that the make of the bike is a Genom-Kawasaki. 

Yes, Genom controls everything, but that is not Capitalism. That is Cronyism. Also, the Knight Sabers aren't fighting Genom to usher in Communism. In the OVA series they were mercenaries, and in the 1998 reboot series Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, they were fighting under orders from the billionaire leader of the Knight Sabers, Sylia Stingray, to fight Genom's boomers and prevent Genom from awakening Galatea - a boomer robot who has the potential to wipe out the human race. If you think that a billionaire like Sylia Stingray, who is using three other young women who just so happen to be hardcore Capitalists too (Linna being the best example here), to fight against the other billionaires in charge of Genom, is an example of "Socialism", I'd like to know what kind of weed you're smoking.

"B-but, DetroitOtaku, what about the themes about the environment? AVALANCHE are literally trying to save the planet by stopping the overuse of energy sources that are dangerous to the planet like Mako! Surely that means Final Fantasy VII is left-leaning as MovieBob and other Tankies say!"

Well, I hate to rain on your parade...but no. 

Here's why.

All you leftists, greenies, socialists, etc. are gonna hate this a lot, but there's ONE important part of the game that you all glossed over. It's at the point where you reach North Corel, and Barret talks about his past as a coal miner.

Wait...did I just say coal?

Don't radical leftist environmentalists and socialists hate energy sources like coal, natural gas and oil? Hmm...if only I could think of that one part where Shinra has a town get rid of coal...

Now, if only I could think of someone who shares the same viewpoints as Shinra on coal and green energy...

LOL.

So, how pissed are you right now? How pissed are you, that you want to leave a comment about how much you hate my guts?! 

Comparing Shinra and it's members like Scarlet to HILLARY CLINTON?! BLASPHEMY!!!!

But it's really not. Shinra really did declare war on coal, like modern leftist environmentalists in America and Europe do today. Also, you want to know what'll REALLY grind your gears, Tankies?

If you are familiar with the complete version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, check out Barret's Novella, which is in the On the Way to a Smile short story series. Before Cloud meets up with Rufus, he gets a message from Barret saying that he has discovered a MAJOR OIL FIELD, meaning that they finally found something to replace Mako with once and for all.

Yes, folks. OIL. That OTHER major energy source that leftist environmentalists hate and want to get rid of because...reasons. This ALONE should destroy the idea that Final Fantasy VII is some sort of pro-leftist fever dream. Barret isn't really the eco-nut you think he is. Neither was the rest of AVALANCHE. Barret's past as a coal miner who lost his job because of Shinra's actions should have been a dead giveaway. Mako energy killing the planet was not an analogy for pollution or oil extraction, it was that under the mechanics of the game's universe, the Planet was a living being that was in danger of dying, and fighting Mako energy was the same as fighting Shinra.

Final Fantasy VII IS NOT a Socialist fever dream. It does not conform to logic, and it does not conform to the facts.

I would also talk about the influence of the 1927 silent sci-fi film Metropolis' influence on Final Fantasy VII, but this article is already long enough as it is, and that is another story for another time.

The trend of corporations having government granted monopolies, as well as corporations buying off politicians and even governments, predictions which were presented as a warning in both Bubblegum Crisis and Final Fantasy VII, have unfortunately come true. We have corporations like Google, Disney, and Facebook becoming more involved in our daily lives and our governments, lobbying to change laws that benefit them and not us, and censoring speech from perceived political threats to their power. 

These corporations have the money to buy off the government, and in many cases they already are the government. They don't exist without them and they don't have any power that government didn't give to them.

Corporations becoming the government in Final Fantasy VII was the warning that game presented us with, and in many ways that game has become sort of a prophecy, as it has predicted our future with almost frightening accuracy. Not to mention the modern war on coal by left-wing environmentalists that this game predicted as well.

All you Bernie Bros and Tankies can pound on that Caps Lock key all day long and say "Right-wing Cloud and Tifa is just a meme!", and all you StormFronters can call me a fence-sitter all you want. And that Communist asswipe MovieBob, who parroted the talking point that FFVII is pro-Socialist, can also suck a fat one as well.

But one cold hard fact stands: Final Fantasy VII is not a Socialist fever dream. Never has been, and never will be. And here's further proof near the end of Disc 3 that proves my point:

Now piss off.

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