Dawn of the anti-anti-hero era

I don’t remember at exactly what point I got fed up with the “brooding anti-hero” who appears in most television shows, movies, video games, comic books, novels, and cereal commercials these days, but I did.

I’ve been sick of him for years. He’s a moody teenager (or looks like one, anyway) with a tragic past that he can’t get over, and he thinks too much, and he’s got a bad boy vibe, and wastes a lot of time trying to figure what to do, and the girls think he’s so mysterious, and he wears a lot of black…

He’s Hamlet, really. So I suppose we have Billy Shakespeare to thank for inventing this stupid archetype.

But now, maybe, just maybe, we’ve turned the corner and it’s time for something else. The anti-anti-hero, AKA, the hero. And it looks like the nice people at Square Enix might try to lead the way with their new Final Fantasy installment for the DS.

I’ve been a fan of Final Fantasy for…well, let’s just say more than a decade. I remember the first time I saw Aerith die, and the third, and the fifth.

It’s a strong franchise, if for no other reason than the fact that they hold fast to their tropes and touchstones. The formula is simple:

• A band of diverse heroes
• are drawn into a larger/regional/global conflict (war)
• between the forces of nature/magic
• and the forces of industrialization/technology
• with a smattering of understated romance
• climaxing in a message about how war is bad
• and nature is good
• and where there is life there is hope
• or something.

But ever since Cloud Strife led us into the fray in 1997’s FF7, the franchise (and all its imitators) has been obsessed with the moody anti-hero who has to be constantly prodded into doing the right thing by his friends.

Fortunately, this new game Four Warriors of Light seems to return to the basics: heroes who do heroic things because they are heroes and that’s all there is to it. I hope the game and its spirit are successful enough to summon a sea change not just in video games but other media as well, which is not an unreasonable hope considering the longevity and global reach of the franchise.

I can always hope.