Final Fantasy XIII: Growing, Becoming

Final Fantasy, as a series, is not particularly subtle with its metaphors. This is perhaps most true of Final Fantasy XIII, which places its characters in the world of Cocoon, an enclosed continent that hangs in the sky over the world of Gran Pulse like, yes, an enormous cocoon. Its theocratic government, the Sanctum, is run by godlike beings called fal’Cie, whom the people of Cocoon are called to serve in exchange for the fal’Cie filling their basic needs.

Final Fantasy XIII’s protagonist, Lightning, is a soldier who is searching for a way to turn her sister Serah human again after Serah is turned to crystal. But at the beginning of the game, she’s woefully unprepared to do so. Life on Cocoon is a sheltered existence; the fal’Cie provide everything for their people, even light and food and water. Cocoon is deliberately constructed to ensure its residents want for nothing, that they have no reason to question the Sanctum’s oversight. 

Leaving Cocoon later in the game feels momentous because it is—the party’s ship bursts into the sky and it is enormous and dazzling, the world below nothing but a tiny patchwork of plains and rivers. Unlike Cocoon, the world of Gran Pulse is organic, untouched by the fal’Cie. A cocoon isn’t just a place of shelter, it’s a place of transformation. Outside of Cocoon, the characters have to confront the worst parts of themselves and their worst mistakes in service of becoming better people.

On Gran Pulse the game opens up, taking a more open-world structure, and the Crystarium expands, allowing all six party members to learn any of the combat roles available, though they’re stronger at some than others. For probably the first time in their lives, the party has complete and total freedom to become whoever they want to be. 

In some ways Lightning’s journey reminds me of my own, of leaving home for the first time to go to college. What I love most about Final Fantasy XIII is that it’s a game about becoming; it’s a game about questioning beliefs and learning self-acceptance and growing into the best version of yourself. It reminds me of understanding and accepting my queerness for the first time, of the utter joy and terror of adulthood’s freedoms. Of discovering a world more enormous and dazzling than I’d ever known.