Kingdom(s) Come
Character Remediations and Polyperspectivity of the Final Fantasy franchise in Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II
Keywords:
polyperspectivity, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy VII, Fan Studies, Tetsuya Nomura, Netnography, Media Mix, Worldview, Video games, franchisesAbstract
Over twenty years since its original release, Final Fantasy VII (Square 1987) fans continue to debate the video game’s world and characters as they are mixed and remixed into new licensed products. This article explores the fan metanarrative that circulates the story, ludology, and industry discourses that bind Final Fantasy VII. It will demonstrate how fan practices operate within community spaces to locate, present, and police both knowledge and meanings about a fictional world that itself is continually being reshaped by the transmedia production milieu. This article explores the ongoing fan debates circulating characters Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith from Final Fantasy VII, and their respective remixing into the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Through a discourse analysis (Gee, 2007) of online Western fan bases, published above-the-line production interviews (Mayer et al. 2009), and self-reflexive experiences (Hills 2002), I seek to demonstrate the complexity of fan practices and how they attempt to locate (and generate) narrative coherency. I will argue that fans do not simply enjoy games for their variance in gameplay and story but seek a better understanding of a growing fictional world that is complex and is subject to sanctioned rewrites. Drawing on Eiji Ōtsuka’s theories on world and variation (2010), this article will demonstrate how fans can function as textual barristers in their attempts to untangle the media mix (Steinberg, 2012) of Final Fantasy VII through its ongoing reiterations, adaptations, and world-sharing with Kingdom Hearts.
References
Anderson, B. R. O. (1983). Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso.
Azuma, H. (2009). Otaku: Japan’s database animals. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press
Beaver, F. (2015, January 21). Show don’t tell. Michigan Today. https://michigantoday.umich.edu/2015/01/21/show-dont-tell/
Burn, A., & Schott, G. (2004). Heavy hero or digital dummy? Multimodal player-avatar relations in Final Fantasy 7. Visual Communication, 3(2), 213–233.
Caldwell, J. (2008). Production culture: Industrial reflexivity and critical practice in film and Television. Duke University Press.
Chloe, (2018, March). Nomura doesn’t know the nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship [Tumblr], Get a good dose of shipping facts!, https://ff7shipfacts.tumblr.com/post/172176549271/2-nomura-doesnt-know-the-nature-of-cloud-and
Cloudywolf76432. (2019, December 4). Is Maiden Who Travels the Planet canon? [Reddit Post]. R/FinalFantasy. https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasy/comments/e5z869/is_maiden_who_travels_the_planet_is_canon/
Consalvo, M. (2017). When paratexts become texts: De-centering the game-as-text. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34,(2), 177–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2017.1304648.
FF_Goddess. (n.d). Koibito. retrieved 28 January 2022, from http://cloudandaerith.com/Koibito.html
Foucault, M. (1991). What is an author? In P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault reader: An introduction to Foucault’s thought (pp. 101–120). Penguin Books.
Gee, P. (2007). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. (2nd Ed). Routledge.
Genette, G., & Maclean, M. (1991). Introduction to the paratext. New Literary History, 22(2), 261-272. doi:10.2307/469037
Glen The Twilight Mexican. (2010, November 19). FVII and canon - The lifestream. Retrieved 28 January 2022, https://thelifestream.net/lifestream-projects/analysis/7025/ffvii-and-canon-2/
Gray, J. (2010). Show sold separately: promos, spoilers, and other media paratexts. New York University Press.
Gray, J., Sandvoss, C., & Harrington, C. L. (2017). Fandom: identities and communities in a mediated world / (Second edition.). New York University Press.
Green, S., Jenkins, C., & Jenkins, H. (2006). In Jenkins H. (Ed.), Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
GreyGardens, (2013, May 30). Cloud's love triangle - The LTD of FFVII. FinalFantasyForums. Retrieved 28 January 2022, https://www.finalfantasyforums.net/threads/clouds-love-triangle-the-ltd-of-ffvii.43481/page-21#post-1071815
Hills, M. (2002). Fan cultures. Routledge.
Hills, M. (2017). Media academics as media audiences: Aesthetic judgments in media and cultural studies. In Gray J., Sandvoss C., & Harrington C. (Eds.), Fandom, second edition: identities and communities in a mediated world (pp. 60-76). New York: NYU Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1pwtbq2.6
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York University Press.
Jenkins, H. (2012). Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture (2nd ed.). Taylor and Francis.
Jenkins, H., Ford, S., & Green, J. (2013). Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture (Ser. Postmillennial pop). New York University Press
Jenkins, H., & Tulloch, J. (1996) Science fiction audiences. Media Culture and Society, 18(2), 364–367.
Kozinets, R. V. (2002). The field behind the screen: using netnography for marketing research in online communities. Journal of Marketing Research, 39(1), 61–72. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.39.1.61.18935
Kozinets, R. V. (2015). Netnography: redefined (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Leone, M. (2017, January 9). Final Fantasy 7 An oral history. Polygon. Retrieved 28 January 2022, https://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7
Makoeyes9877. (2009, September 25). The love triangle of FFVII – An analysis by Squall_of_SeeD. The Lifestream. Retrieved 28 January 2022, https://thelifestream.net/lifestream-projects/analysis/4698/the-love-triangle-of-ffvii-an-analysis-by-squall_of_seed/
Mayer, V., Banks, M., & Caldwell, J. (2009). Production studies: Cultural studies of media industries. Routledge.
Nomura, T. (2005). Nomura interview, Dorimaga Magazine, (12), 17. Tokyo: Softbank Publishing.
Ourfinalheaven. (2016, January 16). Cloud loves Tifa. [Tumblr]. Our final heaven. Retrieved 28 January 2022, https://ourfinalheaven.tumblr.com/post/137123305994/cloud-loves-tifa
Ōtsuka, E. (2010). World and Variation: The reproduction and consumption of narrative. (Marc Steinberg, Trans), Mechademia, 5, 99–116.
Pearce, C. (2009). Communities of play: Emergent cultures in multiplayer games and virtual worlds. The MIT Press.
Švelch, J. (2020). Paratextuality in game studies: A theoretical review and citation analysis. Game Studies, 20,(2). http://gamestudies.org/2002/articles/jan_svelch.
Squall_of_SeeD. (2013, November 1). Dilly dally, shilly shally: An LTD analysis TheLifeStream. Retrieved 28 January 2022, https://thelifestream.net/reviews-analysis/dilly-dally-shilly-shally-an-ltd-analysis/
Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media audiences: effects, users, institutions, and power. SAGE Publications.
Staiger, J. (2005). Media reception studies. NYU Press.
Steinberg, M. (2012). Media mix: Franchising toys and characters in Japan. University of Minnesota Press.
Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. Pan Books.
The Lifestream. (2014, August 12). Final Fantasy 7 commercials from 1997 | TheLifestream.net. Retrieved 28 January 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDz9A4ByHIQ
VGArtAndTidbits. (2016, October 7). From the instruction booklet ~ Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation – 1997). Twitter. Retrieved 28 January 2022, https://twitter.com/VGArtAndTidbits/status/784249134282776576/photo/1
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 James McLean
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
The copyright for work in this journal is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal. In keeping with a Creative Commons license, articles are free to use with proper attribution (to both the author and Loading…) for educational and other non-commercial uses.
