In Final Fantasy VIII story, Ultimecia is a tragic villain. She's the final boss of the game and the trigger of most of the game's plot despite not appearing herself until the final section of the game.
Ultimecia is a sorceress that was fated to become the evil ruler of the world, and was fated to be killed by the mercenary force SeeD. She was born into role. Ultimecia lived her whole life fighting a losing battle against fate.
As a sorceress from the future who went back to the past. By the time Ultimecia was born, all of her future evil doings were already recorded in history books.
As a child everyone recognized her abilities. They shunned her. Hated her. Persecuted her. All because of something she didn't have a choice on. People around her from that era are almost as guilty as her, until one day she snapped. She vowed to show them their true fears.
It was stated by the developers of Final Fantasy VIII that the reason Ultimecia and Adell before her, did not have someone who loved them in their life which made them evil. On the other hand Edea & Rinoa were grounded by love and didn't use their powers for evil.
I can't help though to notice how surprisingly real her tragedy was. People are dealing with similar issue in real life. Only doing the bad actions that (even) they don't agree with, because they snapped from the accusations of people around them.
People in real life become criminals because they were accused of other crimes they didn't commit before.
A Sorceress Choice
Despite saying that. I believe someone like her should be still held accountable for everything they do. You can argue that going against the world was her only option, but Ultimecia still chose to take that option.
It's true that she was fated to be evil, but the only reason all of that happened was because she tried to fight her fate in the first place. Being evil was still her choice in the end. If she truly wanted to fight fate, she could've tried to be a good person instead.
Though honestly, FFVIII timeline doesn't work that way, Fate is absolute in that story.
While her story is tragic and I sympathize with her. I know her actions can't be forgiven. The story was beautifully written, (if roughly presented in the game itself) and I know I can learn many things from this tragic villain failings.
What do you think?
- The image is a Dissidia Final Fantasy screenshot taken from here.
- This article is also posted on Read.cash.
- For more FFVIII articles, see this collection.