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Author: Ben <benk@tilde.team>
Mon Sep 13 07:54:17 PM +0430 2021
Originally I wanted to write a review of the first Final Fantasy game, since I beat it a few days ago. I already wrote here about the Pixel Remaster series and how I have been satisfied with the releases so far. I figured it would only make sense to write a full review of each Final Fantasy game as part of my project to play them all. Later I'll write something specifically about Final Fantasy I, but so far the pattern seems to be that these new versions of the games are too easy, so I might end up finishing them sooner than I expected to. On the other hand, I'm sure as an adult I have a much easier time understanding and exploiting the combat system than my child self did. (In fact, as a child I didn't seem to care at all for puzzle or strategy games, which probably explains why I never sought to master turn-based combat beyond the bare minimum required to play.)
What prevented me from starting out writing that full review, was that during my current playthrough of Final Fantasy II, I noticed a curiously Zoroastrian element in the game's story. Deciding to investigate further, I did just that and prepared a tiny amount of material to show on my gemlog. (This is apparently my first gemlog post to contain images!) While I was reading up on the games, I happened to be reminded of the fact that the first three Final Fantasy games were developed by an Iranian-American programmer, Nasir Gebelli. Here is a web link to his Wikipedia page:
Jordan Mechner, the creator of "Prince of Persia", said that he was influenced by Nasir's work.
The other thing that helped inspire me to write this is that my wife wanted to play Children of Morta again, which we played last year but didn't beat. (We got so close, that we were able to beat the main story just today.) I already reviewed Children of Morta on Gemini, so I probably already mentioned its Iranian influences, but I'll detail a couple of those in this post.
In Final Fantasy II, there is a plot element fairly early in the game which requires retrieving magical fire from a fire temple in the ruins of "Kashuan", a fictional place. (Or is?)
The game includes some interesting lore regarding the flame:
> The region has a rich history, with its most famous story telling of how a star fell in the area years ago. A man gathered flames from the star and enshrined it in the building now known as Kashuan Keep. The only vessel capable of holding the fire was known as Egil's Torch and was stored far within the keep.
In part of the game's dialog, it is mentioned that the fire is sometimes removed from its brazier so that it may be cleaned:
> Every three years a ceremony is held here, where Egil's Torch is taken and is lit with the Sunfire itself. This is to ensure that the flame will keep burning no matter what.
An artifact known as "Egil's Torch" is used to transfer the flame. Here is an image of the fire temple in-game:
Where fact meets fiction, the name "Kashuan" is seemingly an indirect reference to "Kushan". That is my best guess. The Kushan were a people located to the west of China in the early AD period.
Of particular interest is the fact that they were Iranian, and Zoroastrianism was among the religions they practiced or were influenced by:
> Chinese sources describe the Guishuang (貴霜), i.e. the Kushans, as one of the five aristocratic tribes of the Yuezhi.[34] There is scholarly consensus that the Yuezhi were a people of Indo-European origin.[23][35] A specifically Tocharian origin of the Yuezhi is often suggested.[23][24][25][26][27][36] An Iranian, specifically Saka,[37] origin, also has some support among scholars.[38] Others suggest that the Yuezhi might have originally been a nomadic Iranian people, who were then partially assimilated by settled Tocharians, thus containing both Iranian and Tocharian elements.[39]
Much to my delight, there is in the Wikipedia article even included a fragment of an ancient mural from the region (these are really cool) depicting the fire altar:
Furthermore, the game's description of how the flame was considered sacred/magical and how it had to be specially handled is fairly close to the real beliefs of ancient Zoroastrians, who used to tend sacred flames in their temples and had specific rituals involving their treatment, such as restrictions on what wood the flame could burn and how it could be transfered. Some of these rituals were pseudo-scientific, meant to retain or improve the flame's quality and purity.
The explanation in the game's story that the fire came from a special source, could only by held by a special torch, and had exceptional properties fits very well with the beliefs and pratices of ancient Zoroastrians. In fact, they were probably not the only people that had such beliefs and practices, but clearly this is what the game took inspiration from.
However, in spite of the interesting setting and lore, it's funny to note that the game's plot apparently accords little significance to the flame. Rather it's part of just a small side-quest where you must simply fetch the flame and subsequently throw it into the engine of an airship in order to blow it up. (A fairly short-sighted use for such an important artifact, but hey, it's for saving the world, right?)
Whether or not Nasir Gebelli had a hand in this story is up for debate. I wouldn't mind asking him about it personally, but I haven't even tried contacting him. The Wikipedia article about him seems to overly credit him with the design of the Final Fantasy games, and as the game's programmer I wouldn't doubt that he worked very closely with the Final Fantasy designers and writers, but the game's own article mentions that design and story writing were done by others. In seeming conflict to the Gebelli theory, the game's article specifically mentions that while Final Fantasy I had its story contrived around the gameplay to conform to how the game engine was being developed, Final Fantasy II was designed with its story first, before the software.
That being said, Final Fantasy II clearly contains experimental game engine choices that would still have had a significant impact on what the designers could do story-wise. (For example, the dialog system and the cutscenes.) It is likely that the Japanese designers would already have known something themselves about Kushan and fire temples, given their field of interest. After all, the Final Fantasy series is replete with references to world mythology and legend.
It should be noted that in East Asian cultures, particularly in China, a lot of myths and legends or fairy tales were popularly associated with the mysterious West, which were the Iranian peoples living in Central Asia. This is something a little bit like the "Arabian Nights" or mysterious/magical East motif popularized by fantasy stories in Europe.
Side Note: In another Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy X, a mythical city called "Zanarkand" is prominently featured in the story. This name is an obvious reference to the Iranian city Samarkand in the same region as Kushan. (In fact, it appears to have been part of their empire.)
Just to piggyback off of the main exhibit, the game Children of Morta has no hidden Iranian influence. Rather, the game was created by a team that, judging by the credits, is nearly entirely Iranian. Dead Mage, the game's development studio, is an Iranian company based in the United States.
Children of Morta is set in a fictional land, and while it's not explicitly based on anything Iranian, there are actually lots of direct references in the game, such the family's pets mostly having literal Persian names, the light/dark duality myth serving as the basis for the plot, and writings in the game designed to mimic cuneiform and Middle Persian. Today I noticed in the game's Family Trials add-on content a reference to something called "Asva Tribe", where "asva" is the Avestan word for "horse" ("asp" in Modern Persian).
I wanted to include a visual example of the writing, which I took long ago from the original gameplay trailer:
Since I studied Middle Persian, I recognized the writing style immediately. It's an obvious copy, and I even attempted to identify possible words in these writings, but after transcribing and analyzing what appears in the game, I quickly concluded that it's merely artwork. In other words, the text doesn't say anything, rather it's created only to be visually pleasing. (As far as I know.) It is not pure Middle Persian writing, but rather it's a random combination of letters and shapes borrowed from it as well as the Arabic style script that Modern Persian uses.
Here is an example of typical Middle Persian (also known as "Pahlavi") writing:
The other things I mentioned (cuneiform, names) I didn't bother capturing, so the above images will have to suffice. I do recommend this game to anyone who is willing to buy it. (It is actually just an amazing game and a modern testament to the Rogue genre.) Plus it runs natively on Linux.
Regarding the names of the animals, I will translate them here:
Talaa (طلا) the fish, meaning "gold"
Joghd (جغد) the owl, meaning "owl" (of Sogdian origin)
Faramarz (فرامرز) the deer, the name of a mythical hero
The other pets do not have Persian names, but Hashmal (חַשְׁמַל) the cat is apparently Hebrew (possibly with the intended meaning "angel", but could here mean "electric"), and Ryker the wolf cub seems to be a reference to Commander Ryker from Star Trek. This is possibly due to the fact that Captain Picard called Ryker by the nickname "Number One", the name he gives to his dog in the recent Picard series, which debuted in January 2020. The Paws and Claws DLC which introduced the pets was released in August of that year. (Whether or not the Ryker/dog connection existed before the show, I have no idea.)
Incidentally, Hashmal is also referenced in Final Fantasy, though it's not clear why ultimately the name was chosen in Children of Morta. It probably was inspired by someone's real pet (perhaps they all were), but the choice of Hashmal for a cat might be a reference to the fact that the cat is very fluffy/fuzzy, whose hair would attract static electricity. (If you ever pet a cat, don't touch its nose afterward.) A related Persian name could be something like Pashmalu (پشمالو), lit. "furry", which would then be analogous to the common English pet name "Fluffy".
As to why someone would call a deer Faramarz, I have no clue. Possibly because as is typical of Persian heroes, Faramarz battled the forces of darkness and was a demon slayer.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed these bits of information. It's probably more information on this subject than you'd care to know, but while today Iranian culture is often thought of as strange or unrelated, it actually has a long history of influence on global culture. In truth, it's much more familiar than we realize. In the gaming world, there are probably several more examples that may be found, but these happened to be the ones that most recently caught my attention.
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