People facing Imperialism

The figure of empire is common to many works of fantasy. From its birth to its destruction, it is a lever that fascinates our imaginations. Tolkien understood this when he created the universe of The Lord of the Rings. The ages follow one another, with their share of collapses and clashes between empires vying for world domination. Alliances are forged, as are coalitions in the service of a dominant power. It seems almost inevitable that every imagined world will feature some form of dominant power, a central authority exercising control over various regions and borders. These dynamics are often represented by races created specifically for the sake of the story. They serve as metaphors for racial imperialism. This allows the author to explore themes of racial conflict without having to bear the brunt of actual racism.

The saga initiated by Horinobu Sakaguchi is no exception to this narrative tool.An empire is a handy antagonist to exploit, as the negative connotations surrounding it instantly mobilize the player.It represents tyranny, oppression, subjugation and the loss of the individual to a force that standardizes the masses.There’s no better way to subtly question the notion of power relations between peoples.Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood goes further than its predecessors.This is not to say that the subject wasn’t treated with seriousness or depth in the past, but that the presence of an empire, whether classical or corporatist, served above all to paint the eternal fresco of good versus evil, forgetting the profoundly racist and oppressive nature of this societal structure.Yet let’s make no mistake: the use of such an antagonistic structure will always raise racial and social questions.

Too rarely are we confronted with the reality of populations facing the victorious advance of an empire that absorbs everything in its path.What we want is to follow the bellicose path of these great figures who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.Yet there is so much to say about “these people who are nothing”.They are the heart and soul of the lands we walk through with determined steps.They are the unspoken motivation behind our savior complex.I think this is why, to date, Stormblood is my favorite expansion to Square Enix’s best-selling MMORPG.Stormblood describes imperialism, its ideology, the tools of domination, resistance, victims and accomplices with relevance and surgical coldness.

The ashes of rebellion

The main theater of events in Final Fantasy XIV is the continent of Éorzea, within which we find four great city-states: Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, Ul’dah and Ishgard. All are at war with the Garlean Empire, a militaristic and expansionist power intent on absorbing this vast territory. Like the Romans, Garlean’s strength lies in his ability to acculturate conquered territories. All assimilated peoples eventually dissolved into the habits and customs of the colonizer. If today we speak of the Americanization of the whole of Western society, in the world of Final Fantasy XIV, we could speak of the Garleanisation of the world.

Some join Ul’dah’s army by chance, others opt for more ordinary lifestyles, while some turn to militancy in the hope of one day setting foot on their homeland’s soil again. As we complete quests of questionable interest at this point in the adventure, the game is already planting the seeds of what will make Stormblood so special. We need only look up to see dozens of Ala Mhigo refugees camped outside the walls of the prosperous city-state. Access is forbidden to them, and the numerous requests for asylum are buried in the depths of the administration.Treated like oxen, the most able ended up being exploited by greedy merchants or pimps. Their situation is not very different from what we see in Europe. In 2021, it was possible to count almost 4,000 refugees in Berlin working in precarious jobs paying little more than one euro an hour.

This plot point, which seemed to serve only as a backdrop for Naoki Yoshida’s universe, takes on vital importance in Heavensward’s final moments. Ilberd Feare, an Ala Mhigo insurgent, rallies oppressed and marginalized compatriots to his cause. Most of the interactions between him and the player reveal a non-interventionist aspect on the part of our organization, the Heirs of the Seventh Dawn.No military aid will be provided to avoid offending the terrible empire. The injustice is there, but the top decision-makers prefer to display their disagreement timidly rather than take up arms. This kind of attitude is reminiscent of the inaction of the various powers when it comes to the United States of America’s habit of playing the world’s policeman. In FF XIV, everything is done to dissuade refugees from taking up arms, opting instead for dialogue. Of course, negotiating liberation with a militarily superior colonizer without exerting the slightest pressure can’t produce results. In any case, this is the conclusion of the Final Fantasy XIV scriptwriters, reflected in the character of Illberd. Since Eorzea doesn’t care about their fate, they’ll take back their homeland by force. This is how they attack the “Wall of Baelsar” that serves as their border. The assault was a failure, and almost all those who took up arms were swept away by the Imperial forces.

Stormblood lives up to its name. The starting point is a bloodstorm that splashes over the heroes of the adventure and finally spurs them to take up arms to liberate this oppressed people from their condition. The long road ahead takes them to the eastern lands of Kugane, a fictitious representation of Japan, a victim of the same colonialism as the Mhigoise lands, which evoke the former African colonies of the European powers. It’s no longer a time for dialogue, but for war to fend off the terrible empire.It is in this context that the character of Lyse becomes the figurehead of the adventure.
Originally from Ala Mhigo, she creates an emotional attachment between the player and the new territory. Like a desert Che Guevara, she leads the charge of hope into the heart of the enslaved land, as if the massacre of the rebels had served as a trigger to remind her of her origins and make Eorzea aware of the need to undermine the power of its political and military enemy. It may sound silly, but I think it’s one of the reasons why, as I get older, I prefer to spend more time in fictional works than in reality. It would take a long time, but people of good will eventually rose up against the invader, whereas in our world, the international community continues to remain blind to Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories since 1967.

An ode to broken peoples

What stands out when discovering the new Ala Mhigo game zones is the way Square Enix’s teams have transcribed imperialism and its effects in the modeling of this region. For many hours, we wander a desolate, exploited land whose remnants echo past grandeur. There’s this latent idea of a glorious past as we observe these ransacked statues, desecrated temples and peoples deprived of their honor and culture. Every second of the game reminds us that imperialism is a dynamic of exploitation between a foreign occupier and a native occupier who is slowly and violently dispossessed of his or her identity.

We are faced with the phenomenon of acculturation. This is what happens when a group of people adopts the culture of another people. The term originated in 19th-century Anglo-Saxon anthropology, although its use in the social sciences was mainly democratized around 1950. The concept is linked to a theme that often provokes controversy, as its use leads to the intellectualization of the notion of peoples, and to an examination of the relationship between dominant and dominated nations. For French historian and anthropologist Nathan Wachtel, the concept of acculturation is first and foremost part of a colonial situation. Of course, we must not overlook the fact that, in such a context, the dominant culture is always slightly influenced by the assimilated cultures, but, make no mistake about it, the great civilizational design always puts everything in order to crush those who have bent the knee. This is why, for many years, even the most sophisticated aspects of African culture saw their existence explained by the cohabitation of Africans with refined peoples from Europe.

It’s a process that rarely goes smoothly. African populations had a hard time accepting the presence of European invaders, even after several years. The colonists were rightly regarded as parasites who stole the Africans’ resources. To facilitate control of these new territories, the metropolises imposed their culture by building schools, where young Africans learned the language, religion and culture of the people who held them in thrall. This is why, during the Second World War, there were strong patriotic impulses in the French colonies, where the desire to serve France against the invader was sometimes stronger than in the heart of the metropolis. Whether for the Mhigois or the Africans, everything was done to dispossess people of their land, but above all of their history. When we are dispossessed of our past, our identity is doomed to disappear.

In the midst of the dilapidated buildings live the colonized people who are at the heart of Stormblood’s writing, which constantly strives to make room in its narrative for these shattered destinies. As we chat with them, the question of the impurity proclaimed by the Garlean authorities for their blood is raised. This may seem trivial, as it is common to many works of fantasy, such as the “sang-mêlé” of a certain literary saga, but it allows us to exploit the importance of the hierarchy of races within the empire. We’re dealing here with an imperialist rhetoric that’s no stranger to us, as it has accompanied the history of mankind. I personally see parallels with the Valladolid controversy of 1550, which was the scene of numerous debates on the moral rights and treatment of Amerindian populations by Spanish colonizers. The same logic of thought was applied by the Catholic Church to the slavery of sub-Saharan populations. The proclamation of the other’s natural inferiority is the oldest argument in the world to justify conquest. Even today, you can still hear nostalgic comments about this colonial era from people who are prepared to go to any intellectual lengths to persuade you of the validity of colonization.

Because of their colonized status, the Mhigois are regarded as sub-citizens of the society to which they so ardently contribute. The social elevator doesn’t exist for them. They can never rise, despite false hopes of full citizenship. The best they can hope for is to one day obtain a role that will require them to reproduce the same colonial mechanisms of which they were victims. Fordola rem Lupis is a major antagonist in this expansion. Born in Ala Mhigo, everything is done to make her detestable at first sight. She and her men martyrize their compatriots. They don’t hesitate to beat to death those who don’t respect their obligations to the empire. They are what we might call collaborators. Yet there’s something poignant about seeing a people tear each other apart like this. Fundamentally, Fordola is just a victim of colonization who thinks that serving his master, even if it means selling his soul, will enable him to make his people great by showing that they can contribute just as much to the greatness of the nation as pure Garlean. Recent events in France, with the debate on dual nationality, show that the colonial software will always be implacable in the face of those they consider to be “pieces pieced together”.

The same logic continues in the heart of the Doma region. New territory, new region, but still a fragmented, inert people. On numerous occasions, the player is confronted with the voluntary submission of the Domians. The Empire is such an imposing entity, dominating the region for over 20 years, that it seems impossible to stand against it. Our band of heroes is often reprimanded by the natives, who fear being held responsible for our exactions. After losing so many loved ones, it’s hard to blame them. They’re a people who’ve succumbed to oppression and care about only one thing: survival, even if that survival is meaningless. Our journey to bring Lord Hien back to power in this fictional Japan echoes some of Paulo Freire’s theses on the pedagogy of the oppressed.

The main part of the adventure involves helping the various tribes that make up the Doma and Ala Mhigo peoples. The aim is to restore their hope in the benefits of struggle and make them realize that their situation is not immutable. Basing the justification of Garlean’s power on racial theory makes it possible to confront colonialism in its most blatant manifestations, and to use an effective narrative lever to accelerate the peoples’ revolt with 25 years of oppression. The inclusion of local uprising, international support and guerrilla warfare makes the liberation effort one that harks back to many revolutions in our history. The guerrilla techniques employed resemble those used by Fidel Castro’s July 26th movement against Fulgencio Batista, and subsequently exported by Che Guevara throughout South America.

Our aim is to raise the consciousness of the oppressed, to help them acquire revolutionary and emancipatory thinking, while learning as much from them as they learn from us. It’s a hand-in-hand process. The aim is to make oppression and its causes an object of reflection for the oppressed, leading necessarily to a commitment to the struggle for liberation, through which this pedagogy is constantly exercised and renewed. A symbiosis takes place that enables the successive liberation of the two nations. This is what allows Stormblood to avoid falling into the trap of the myth of the white savior, without whom oppressed peoples could not take their history into their own hands, even if it sometimes flirts dangerously with this idea. This awkwardness is due more to a naivety present in many shonens, namely that we are stronger united against the oppressor than on our own. It assumes that conquerors can be defeated. Final Fantasy XIV allows players to dismantle this tyranny with a healthy dose of justified violence against an implacable adversary. While Zenos is the main antagonist, fulfilling his role as conqueror with his Roman-accented armor and long blond hair, embodying the figure of the Gaijin and thus drawing a parallel with the American tutelage of Japan in the aftermath of World War II, the character who crystallizes all of Stormblood’s drama is Yotsuyu.

Yotsuyu, monster and victim

Yotsuyu goe Brutus is a woman from Doma who serves the Garlean empire as right-hand woman to the region’s governor. Her Roman-sounding surname, which evokes Marcus Junius Brutus, a Roman senator best known for being one of Julius Caesar’s murderers, is there to highlight the perfidy that characterizes her. While other characters in the expansion offer reflections on the colonized taking up the cause of their invader, none of them so proudly claim treason. She climbed the empire’s ladder when nothing predestined her to do so, thanks solely to the strength of her hatred for her own people.

Yotsuyu’s parents died when she was still a child. Her aunt and uncle were therefore forced to adopt her. In this new family, she found neither love nor tenderness, only hatred and contempt. They prevented her from going to school, so that she could concentrate solely on domestic chores. They abused her physically, often in front of her younger adopted brother, Asahi. To get a good idea of the early years of her life, visualize what a cross between Harry Potter and Cinderella would look like. Years later, they decided to marry her off to a violent man and, after his death, sell her to a brothel to settle their debts.

With the help of her beauty and a mind as tough as steel, she quickly became the most prominent courtesan in her establishment, before being recruited by the crown prince of the Garlean empire after a failed attempt to seduce the Domian resistance forces. At first glance, she may seem a caricature. She’s a cruel character who takes pleasure in hurting her opponents. Her charadesign itself exudes malice and her past as a femme fatale. Her ornaments, her bare shoulders, her long slit dress – everything is done to tick the boxes of the oriental woman fantasy and lock her into a very masculinist vision of the she-devil woman.

It’s in the adventure’s final arc, which attempts to offer her redemption, that the character reveals her complexity. She brings nuance to a story that might seem a little Manichean, as she is a compatriot who turns against her own people because of all the horrors they have inflicted on her. Indeed, Yotsuyu’s life doesn’t paint a favorable picture of the Domians, for they have scorned her as much as they have the empire, which they go out of their way to point the finger at as the source of all their ills. This helps to portray Doma as an imperfect country which, despite its faults, still deserves to be liberated. Returning to my brief parallel on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s not uncommon since the October 7 attacks to see individuals ridiculing members of the LGBTQ+ community who take up the cause of the liberation of Palestine, under the pretext that the Palestinian people would be trampling on their basic rights if they were living in the same country. The important thing to remember is that all peoples have the right to self-determination.

The nickname Tsuyu given to her by Gosetsu, the gruff old man who reaches out to her despite all the harm she has caused, symbolizes what she could have become had she been raised in a healthy, loving environment. Unfortunately, the sins of her past cannot be forgotten, and neither can the cruelty she has suffered all her life. What we are experiencing in these final moments is not an attempt at justification or rehabilitation, but a simple demonstration of what she could have been under different circumstances. Although she fought all her life to take control of her existence by making her people suffer, in the end she never succeeded in overcoming her status as a colonial subject. Although she has given everything to her people’s oppressors, her long existential agony only ends in death after a bitter struggle with the player. In a way, Square Enix’s title seeks to make us understand that a colonial subject can never achieve true freedom through assimilation.

In these troubled times, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood is a work of art that does good and nourishes our revolutionary aspirations. Imperialism, whether colonial or cultural, can be fought and defeated by the people. It invites us to keep in mind that all peoples have the right to self-determination, and that no one can impose their will on them. Thanks to his globalized narrative, which places us as actors in two liberation movements, he avoids falling into a form of exacerbated nationalism. This is something that might have been particularly tempting for Square Enix’s scriptwriters if the expansion had been all about Doma, which was the cornerstone of marketing thanks to Westerners’ attraction to orientalism. We could have had yet another transposition of Japanese neuroses about what the West did to them following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Instead, we have a reminder of the importance of cooperation between peoples. We mustn’t close in on ourselves, because we’ll always go further if we try to pull together in the same direction without denying what characterizes us. It’s sometimes confoundingly naive, and may lead us to wonder whether the liberated territories aren’t trading brutal imperialism for a more insidious one, but this revolutionary ballad putting people at the center of everything is a welcome addition to the videogame landscape.