Final Fantasy 6 is a story of fragments.
About how our current selves are often a husk guarded by multiple masks, with the bits that
make up our full essence scattered across time and the world.
We leave ourselves behind in these pieces, these bits of memories comprised of joy, trauma,
and everything else.
These are echoes and shadows of the past, of our experience and existence, that make
up the people we are today.
Of course, a lot of these pieces hurt, whether it be due to the sweet pain of nostalgia or
the scars of tragedy.
And we dwell, and cling, and remember without moving on, and it makes us stagnant.
At times, it can be so painful to move past these scars that we leave reflective ghosts
in these fragments and find ourselves unable to take steps forward and truly live in a
world that can lead to such torture.
But the relationships we form make all of it worth it, worth pushing through the pain
of the past and present to find the joys of life once more.
We simply don’t exist in a vacuum, and everything we are today is the result of what has come
to pass - our current and past relationships, our experiences, the bad and the good.
A man who had to say goodbye to his Kingdom and family, coming so close to despair that
he flirted with hell itself, and was only saved from this due to chance by some like-minded
comrades.
A woman with no home and no idea of who she was, forced to become a tool and a monster
and left hurt and scared, desperate for a home and wanting to learn how to love.
Two brothers - one who set off on his own path, and the other who reluctantly but sincerely
became the bearer of responsibility for the legacy of his lost parents and the happiness
of his twin.
A man marred by his perceived failures of the past and terrified to love again - and
a woman who opened herself to love having turned her back on the empire and her past
sins.
A father and a daughter, separated by circumstance yet inexcorably linked by this abstract feeling.
A man running away from his sadness underneath the front of a careless gambler.
And even more - they all felt deep despair and they all found themselves staring into
the abyss of a broken world, of what used to be their home.
And in wallowing in this place that reflected the scattered sorrow they felt, they all had
a compulsion to lose the last semblance of their hope.
But for one reason or another - the encouragement of a friend, the memories of those long departed,
an ironic wink of fate - they found themselves unable to lie idle and allow this ruin to
decimate everything.
Even with all of this pain and darkness, there is still something worth living and fighting
for - the connections that inspire them in the first place.
And so they once again banded together, fueled by their bonds - Against the shell of an agonized,
lost fool, frustrated at the world and confused and jealous of the idea that these broken
people had found the means to come together and support one another through their pain,
when all he had was his own loneliness.
Everything he experienced, as he constantly made efforts to feel, lead to that same distinct
nothingness.
And as much as the party celebrates their victory with one last, long sigh of relief,
they lament the soul of someone who was never able to be saved in the way they were.
An advocation of connection, and an expression of sorrow and regret for those who are unable
to find it.
Many thanks for watching.