I recently finished Breath of Fire 4 on the PS1 which had been my project for some time.
I wanted to play the game after noticing on a
pretty large poll that the game's antagonist Fou-Lu, is considered one of the most "highly rated characters" across RPGS, in fact, he secures first place in that poll, with Vivi registering second.
What to make of Fou-Lu? Here is the summary for those who don't know about him. 7 facts about his character. Spoilers? Absolutely! But the game is about 20 years old now!
1) An incarnate dragon-god who comes to rule the world as its rightful emperor. Extremely powerful, great weapon, cool look, awesome magic.2) His coming is foreknown by political powers who pursue him, jealous of their position, they attack him and attempt to kill him.3) While his powers are still weak he is aided and supported and protected by a human women, to whom it seems he falls in love with.4) A god who decides to just live out the human existence, who slots into the mundane, who loses the desire to rule and conquer the world, to put it under his subjection.5) Eventually the political powers find him, they do their upmost again and again to kill him, they cannot, he is a dragon god! But in the end they turn him, they chase him from his village, I think they kill his girlfriend, and they cause him to grow hateful towards humans, for him to return to his first thought, that as god he ought to rule them, but now as one who is evil, destroying all humanity.6) Fou-Lu is the 'other half' of the game's dull, non speaking, personality-less protagonist Ryu. The two must be fused into one (destiny, as always)7) Eventually they meet up and fight it out, if you win the game, well Fou-Lu is destroyed, sucked into the dominant Ryu. If you get game-over presumably Ryu gets sucked into Fou-Lu but unfortunately we don't get to see the consequences from that one.So, What to make of him?
Fou-Lou essentially grows to hate humanity because it's leaders have hated him, have rejected him as their god and rightful ruler. He allows this hatred to pervert him, to corrupt his goodness and the compassion for the greater part of humanity that he had developed.
He's interesting, and by far the most developed character of the otherwise mediocre game, but in terms of philosophy, profundity of thought- Fou-Lu is really nothing more than a typical revenge driven bad guy.
The highlight of his story is most definitely point (4), the period in which he strips himself of his greatness, of his power, and in humility sets about just living the mundane human existence and finding dignity in his humble farm work. There is something beautiful here, seeing a powerful dragon god choosing to put destructive powers to one side for the sake of helping a village and out of love for a woman who has saved his life.
But from then on, it goes down hill and we find nothing more than a revenge driven villain who has decided the best thing to do is to destroy absolutely everything. Nihilism. What will it gain? Nothing? Is it a reasonable choice? No, only a small group of humans has persecuted him. Is it a moral choice? Clearly no... to inflict great suffering indiscriminately, to destroy the world.....
Scratch and RPG villain and almost always you reach Kefka, deep down they are almost all Kefka with a different backstory.
In Kefka we find raw nihilism, someone who destroys simply for the sake of it, because he wills it. Kefka and all RPG villains are utterly incomprehensible, their actions never add up. And that is because of what theologians call "the mystery of iniquity".
The nature of evil is that it is dark, that the more you look and contemplate it the less "sense" it makes, they are dark, you don't get anything deep or rich out of contemplating them.
Often in our world, we hear evil or wicked people pathologised, or their evil rationalised in terms of some illness, as if they cannot help do this irrational and hurtful thing, typically we hear the guy is mentally ill or was abused as a child. This is the easy option, it makes you think you understand the criminal and what he has done. It is not the full truth though, the real truth is "the mystery of iniquity", the evil person has chosen to do evil, he has willed it, and that is the explanation, it is irrational, it is dark, it cannot be understood, that is what it means for something to be truly evil, for good to be tarnished, perverted, simply out of will. Try and get your head around it, you can't.
Divine truths, goodness, holiness, the dogmas of the faith, these on the contrary are mysteries of depth, the more you look at them, they more sense they make, the greater profundity they are shown to contain. They are light, you can gaze at them forever and always see more and rejoice more.
We shouldn't expect the 'greatest character' in RPG history to be aligned with evil, because ultimately evil is shallow, hollow, empty, ignoble, un-admirable, dis-edifying. There is no likeness of Christ, the true man, Who carries all perfections to their completion.
If there is greatness in any character it is due to his nearness to our Saviour and His virtues, this is even true of fictional characters. Christ must have the glory, all creatures must kneel before Him.
