Vivi

Lately I've been worrying a lot about time; what I'm doing with my life, what I've done in my life so far. Whether or not I've left it too late to learn anything useful, get good at anything, do anything worthwhile.

These thoughts brought me to Vivi.

For those unaware, Vivi is (in addition to being my precious perfect son) a character from Final Fantasy IX, a Black Mage. Vivi appears as a typical Black Mage character - he has the big floppy pointy hat obscuring a black circle for a head, he has the blue robe, he has powerful damage-dealing spells.

But Vivi does not fit the stereotype of a wizard. When we meet him, he is in town to see a play - the start of a wish to see the world and learn, as he is thus far very sheltered. In fact, he seems very naive and childlike, completely at sea in a new environment and easily tricked. Rather than wise, he is credulous; while he wields destructive powers, he is immediately warm, earnest and eager to help.

Vivi joins our party and after some misadventures, comes to a village where people seem surprised to see a Black Mage wandering about freely. One kidnapping and rescue later, and we find out why - this is where the Black Mages are produced and shipped off to join the conquering armies of the initial villain of the game. Black Mages are not in fact people who have been trained in magic - they are constructs, machines built for war. This is obviously a shock to Vivi, but it's also clear that it's not the whole story. Vivi isn't just a machine, he is a thinking, feeling person, and even before he knew what he 'was' he was already breaking through those limitations.

This is reinforced when the party later come across an entire village of Black Mages who have escaped their conscription and are attempting to build their own lives in their own way. They don't quite get what 'normal' life is supposed to be - there are a few jokes around their misunderstandings of the society they're trying to interact with and emulate - but, despite what they were 'intended' for, they are clearly capable of forging their own path. But it isn't long before we discover something else shocking about the Black Mages. A number of them have, in the words of the Black Mages themselves, 'stopped moving'. While the Black Mages struggle to understand death, it is quickly apparent that this is what is happening, and worse, we soon find out that they all have an extremely limited lifespan - including Vivi. In fact, Vivi, still seemingly a child, is in fact about halfway through his life. This is just how they were constructed, and, while they can take control over what they do in their lives, this limitation does not seem escapable.

Later, the heroes return to the Black Mage village and find that it is nearly empty - most of the Black Mages have been seduced to joining the (next) villain by the promise that their short lifespans will be extended if they do. Here we see that Vivi, for all his childlike naivete, is capable of great maturity. Once he has overcome his initial shock and sense of betrayal, he shows great understanding to these Black Mages, realising that their decision is not from malice or cruelty but from fear of death, something they do not understand but know is coming all too soon for them. And even here there is hope - some Black Mages have remained in order to look after a chocobo they have named 'Bobby Corwen', a chocobo they clearly love and care for. These beings, created as tools for war, are capable of very human hopes and fears, and of safeguarding and nurturing life.

Vivi himself wrestles with the knowledge of his impending death, and it's heartbreaking to see this sweet, childlike character forced to confront his mortality, forced to mature at this accelerated rate. Yet he finds strength in his friends and, crucially, in the ways he can use his limited span to help them. It's not exactly a new message, sure, but this version of it affected me deeply. Vivi knows he doesn't have much time, and it upsets him, shocks him. But he knows that he's in a world that is in crisis and that while he is alive, he can help to avert it. What matters isn't the time he has, but what he does with it - and his legacy, his acts, will live on after him.

In his book Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Dread of Death, Irvin D. Yalom quotes Otto Rank, a colleague of Freud, who described how 'Some refuse the loan of life to avoid the debt of death,'. These are words that have haunted me since I read them, because that's how I've been living, too scared to make anything of my life because of the knowledge it will be eroded away in the end. Vivi's approach is different. The impermanence of his life - the foreknowledge of its brevity - just makes his friendships, his actions, his journey more precious. It only increases his resolve to do more, to care more, to live more. And in the (very emotional) end to the game, we see a whole group of new Vivi-like Black Mages, out there enjoying life, while a final letter from Vivi is read posthumously. He was right - his legacy lasts beyond his life, and only because of his actions are any of the characters' story resolutions possible. I wasn't expecting this cutesy story - and in particular this diminutive, naive character - to give me such a powerful lesson, but Vivi and his story will be with me forever. I'm even tearing up now writing about it.