Final Fantasy Tactics – Truth in Games

As I frequently discuss on this site, Catholicism is a popular inspiration for religions in fiction due to how interesting it is aesthetically. From the music to the vestments to the architecture the inspiration is everywhere. But not only are the aesthetics cool, but the words and terminology are cool as well. In particular, the title “saint” shows up frequently in fictional religions. So today I’m going to discuss what a saint is in games as well as in Catholicism.

In most games, the term “saint” refers to some major figure, typically associated with the game’s religion. Often these will be figures in the game’s backstory, although occasionally they show up in the present as leaders. Here are a few examples. In Fire Emblem: Three Houses you have the saints Seiros, Cethleann, Cichol, Indech and Macuil, all of whom fought the evil Nemesis 1000 years ago and are heroes to the Church of Seiros of the present.

In Final Fantasy Tactics, you have the saint Ajora- a prophet whose followers founded the Church of Galbados after he was executed by the dominant religion of the time (although in true Final Fantasy Tactics fashion, there is much more to that story). As I mentioned in a previous post, Ys 9 has the saint Rosvita- a common girl who managed to fight off an invading army (in her case the title seems to come more from the fact that she is based on Saint Joan of Arc rather than association with the religion in the game). However, in other games the term saint is just a title for some cool person rather than having any association with religion. For example, in Final Fantasy 14, there is a group of scholars who give the title saint to anyone who did something amazingly well in their lives. Some are still combat oriented such as the saint Finnea who managed to fight off an invading dragon hoard, but others are from skills in pretty random fields. For example, the saint Coinach actually left his religion to become an archaeologist after interpreting some scripture, spent his whole life looking for an ancient civilization and found it right before he died. You even have the saint Adama Landama who was just known for being a good and fair merchant.

So as you can see, the term saint can really refer to all kinds of things in games, religious or otherwise. Now that we’ve seen some fictional examples, let’s discuss what a saint is in Catholicism.

At the end of the day, a saint is anyone in Heaven. Whether recognized on Earth or not, if someone is in Heaven they are a saint. This is why All Saint’s Day (November 1) exists, to celebrate all the saints, known and unknown alike. That being said, when most people refer to the term “saint” they are thinking of canonized saints. A canonized saint is someone that the Catholic Church is extremely confident is in Heaven and that lived a life of heroic virtue worth emulating. For a well known example, you have Saint Francis of Assisi who radically tried to emulate the Gospels. In more modern times, you have Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) caring for the dying in India or Pope Saint John Paul the Great who led the church for the last part of the turbulent 20th century. Saints are typically patron saints of certain things and people are told they are a particularly good intercessor for those topics (for a well known example, people ask for Saint Anthony’s intercession to help find lost items). In the distant past people were canonized simply by popular declaration, but over time the process has been formalized. First, a bishop can open the cause for someone in their diocese after their death and begin an investigation of their life, giving the person the title “Servant of God” in the process. If good evidence is found of heroic virtue, it is sent to Rome where the pope can then declare the person “Venerable.” At this point, people are encouraged to pray for the person’s intercession for a miracle. After one confirmed miracle someone is beatified and called “Blessed” and after two they can be canonized and declared “Saint.” There are two additional things to note. First, that the miracles are thoroughly investigated by scientists and thus only count if no one can come up with a good alternative explanation for what happened. Second, martyrs typically don’t require as many miracles since dying for the faith is both obviously heroic virtue as well as a one way ticket to Heaven. To see this process in action, you can check out Blessed Michael J. McGivney who was recently beatified after a boy was miraculously cured at his intercession. In conclusion, a saint is anyone in Heaven and a canonized saint is someone the church is confident is in Heaven that lived a life of heroic virtue.

So there is a discussion on saints in games as well as saints in Catholicism. As someone with an interest in history, I enjoy reading about the saints. Simply reading about the lives of saints can give you a good feel for what was going on in the church during their times. On top of that, many saints lived interesting lives that make great stories (check out the story of one of my favorite saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe for a good example there). So if you haven’t before, pick out a few and look into their stories yourself.

Song of the Post-

Garreg Mach Cathedral

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Another song that plays in a church

If you were to look at the religion shelf on my bookshelf, it would become clear pretty quickly that I’m interested in church history. There is something about seeing how things work out just right in history that is cool to me. One major set of topics that shows up in church history is the various heresies that pop up periodically. While studying this topic is nice because by learning what the church says is wrong you also learn what is right, today I want to focus on heretics themselves. Specifically, I want to talk about how heretics are presented in games and what a heretic is (and isn’t) in real life.

The term heretic is actually pretty common in various games and fictional settings. In pretty much any setting with a religion (especially an fanatical one), characters that come into conflict with the religion tend to be branded heretics. For example, I’ve been recently playing Final Fantasy Tactics. About half way into the game, the main character Razma ends up fighting Cardinal Draclau who has taken the princess hostage.

The cardinal uses magic to turn into a monster, but Razma and his team defeat him. As a result, the church declares him a heretic and the people of the world are told to capture or kill him on sight, despite the fact that the cardinal was the one in the wrong. This kind of setup is common, and is often used with the “church is secretly evil” plot twist to make the player character enemies of the world. Another minor example from a more recent game is Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Early in the game, some members of the western branch of the Church of Seiros plot to rebel against and attack Archbishop Rhea. As a result, they are branded heretics and you the player have to fight them, eventually leading to their execution. In probably the most extreme example, there is the world of Warhammer 40000, where anything going even slightly against the Empire of Man can be considered heresy. It’s so over the top in this setting that in extreme cases it is justification for wiping out an entire planet. It’s so extreme that Warhammer heresy memes and jokes are pretty common online.

Even looking at The Legend of Heroes series, heretic is used to denote enemies of the church, although in that case, it is limited to rebellious and out of control clergy. So as you can see, most fantasy settings with a church will simply use the term heretic to refer to an enemy of the church. But what exactly is a heretic in real life?

Simply put, a heretic is someone who has an incorrect belief, is told that belief is incorrect and to stop believing it by some kind of authority, and choosing to believe it anyways (I believe the term “obstinately” shows up in the official definition). The important parts of this definition are the second and third parts, namely that a heretic has been corrected by some authority and still deliberately chooses to be wrong anyways. This is important because it means that someone who is wrong about something isn’t a heretic, just someone who is wrong. For example, the church father Origen had many beliefs that the church today would consider wrong, but we wouldn’t call him a heretic because no one corrected him at the time (as the doctrines in question weren’t fully developed). On this flip side, Arius would be considered a heretic, because even after the Council of Nicea said his beliefs about Jesus were wrong, he still continued to preach it. This also explains why the church would consider the original Protestants heretics but not modern ones. The early Protestants were under the authority of the church who told them they were wrong but chose to ignore that. Modern Protestants however were raised outside the church and thus lack that authority correcting them. The next question would be once someone is a heretic, what should be done about them? In most fictional settings, the answer is almost exclusively to execute them. In real life, execution was indeed an option, but typically only after spending considerable time convincing the person to give up their incorrect opinion. The justification for executing them would typically be to prevent the incorrect belief from spreading and leading more people away from the church and to give them a clear period of time to help them repent (similar to the Catholic justification for the death penalty). This is the justification used (whether right or wrong) to execute Jan Hus, one of the proto-Protestants. So overall, heretics are people who are wrong, told they are wrong by a church authority and choose to remain wrong rather than simply any enemy of the church. And while they have been executed in the past, it is typically as a last resort, not an automatic response.

So as you can see, heretics in fictional religions don’t really align with the real thing. As I mentioned earlier, I believe the reason the term heretic is thrown around in games so often is that it is an easy way to get the world to turn on the player even if they are the hero, especially in conjunction with the church is secretly evil trope. I’ll admit, while I’m completely sick of the church being secretly evil, I tend to be more ok with the main characters being branded heretics because it tends to lead to interesting gameplay (as being on the run usually limits your options). I just hope people understand that fictional stories don’t necessarily correspond to reality.

Song of the Post

Apoplexy

Final Fantasy Tactics

For some reason the best songs in Final Fantasy Tactics are named after medical terms

Tag: Final Fantasy Tactics

Saints

Heretics