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rynlingWhile reading about Final Fantasy VII, I’m also playing it on Nintendo Switch and taking a lot of screenshots. I feel like I’m actually seeing the game for the first time as I realize how much thought and care was put into all of the pre-rendered backgrounds.
According to the FFVII Remake, Barret’s group is an “independent cell” of a larger organization. In the original game, however, you really get the sense that Avalanche is just two very driven people (Barret and Tifa) supported by local hired help (Biggs and Wedge) and one socially awkward computer otaku (Jessie). Also, when Reeve is trying to convince President Shinra not to bring the plate down on Sector 7, he asks if it’s really necessary to destroy an entire section of the city just to take out an organization “with only a few members.”
I wasn’t able to study the details of the game’s pre-rendered backgrounds before, but now I’m realizing that there’s Avalanche graffiti on just about every available surface. When I’d previously played the game, I took note of the more visible pieces of graffiti and assumed that Barret spent a few years staging an underground PR campaign before he worked his way up to bombing a reactor, and that Avalanche enjoyed relatively widespread popular support below the plate. Now that I’m seeing how ubiquitous the Avalanche graffiti is, I guess it would make sense that the organization is larger than just Barret (and the group of hippies in Cosmo Canyon).
I always admired Barret and Tifa for standing up to Shinra and the Turks more or less on their own, but what they’re doing hits a little different if the story is that they’re extremists who left a larger organization in order to take more direct and violent action. I remember reading in an interview released with the FFVII Remake that the original dev team wasn’t thinking too hard about what “terrorism” actually entails back in the mid-1990s, and that subsequent real-world events inspired them to add more nuance to Avalanche’s goals and activities.
Either way, though, I think Barret is right about everything he says. Fuck the Shinra Corporation.
According to the FFVII Remake, Barret’s group is an “independent cell” of a larger organization. In the original game, however, you really get the sense that Avalanche is just two very driven people (Barret and Tifa) supported by local hired help (Biggs and Wedge) and one socially awkward computer otaku (Jessie). Also, when Reeve is trying to convince President Shinra not to bring the plate down on Sector 7, he asks if it’s really necessary to destroy an entire section of the city just to take out an organization “with only a few members.”
I wasn’t able to study the details of the game’s pre-rendered backgrounds before, but now I’m realizing that there’s Avalanche graffiti on just about every available surface. When I’d previously played the game, I took note of the more visible pieces of graffiti and assumed that Barret spent a few years staging an underground PR campaign before he worked his way up to bombing a reactor, and that Avalanche enjoyed relatively widespread popular support below the plate. Now that I’m seeing how ubiquitous the Avalanche graffiti is, I guess it would make sense that the organization is larger than just Barret (and the group of hippies in Cosmo Canyon).
I always admired Barret and Tifa for standing up to Shinra and the Turks more or less on their own, but what they’re doing hits a little different if the story is that they’re extremists who left a larger organization in order to take more direct and violent action. I remember reading in an interview released with the FFVII Remake that the original dev team wasn’t thinking too hard about what “terrorism” actually entails back in the mid-1990s, and that subsequent real-world events inspired them to add more nuance to Avalanche’s goals and activities.
Either way, though, I think Barret is right about everything he says. Fuck the Shinra Corporation.
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Date: 2021-08-31 05:38 pm (UTC)Tattoo this on my forehead.
...although I am NOT looking forward to the inevitable point where the narrative drops a big old THIS MAN IS WRONG AND HE DID A BAD anvil on Barret, as much as I love them shining a big ol' spotlight on Tifa's discomfort. On the other hand, none of the good guys know yet that the real cause of the Big Boom was Shinra, maybe that will be a future revelation that will actually bolster Barret's side of the argument?
(also also, Not-Barret Avalanche (above-Plate Avalanche?) is quite clearly an armed, well-trained paramilitary organization, or at least has a paramilitary branch. And I think it's canon that they're being supplied by Wutai, though I've been avoiding Chapter Yuffie spoilers. So what on earth are they doing that ISN'T bombing reactors? What do they need an army FOR if not to do things that are completely comparable to reactor-bombing? Do they just have very weird ideas about what is and is not acceptable terrorism that Barret didn't agree with? ...or, uncomfortable thought, was it just the Wutai connection? Barret does vehemently deny being connected to Wutai before the Airbuster fight in the Remake. Are we in for a revelation that Barret's just racist against Wutai and that's what the schism was really about? I really, really hope not. Please Squenix gods do not make Barret the new Wakka.)
(.......sorry for the nerd dump in your inbox >_>)
no subject
Date: 2021-09-01 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-01 07:31 pm (UTC)