Aspect Analysis - Takaya (Persona 3) VS. Seymore (Final Fantasy X)

Aspect Analysis is a series where I look at a singular aspect of a game or games (When multiple games, it’s done for the purpose of comparison), and try to explain why I feel that aspect works. It’s not a review of the game, and there will be times I will be highly positive of an aspect of a game that I don’t like, or negative about an aspect of a game I do like.

Mostly I’ll be highlighting positive aspects because I like talking about things I enjoy, and at times it’s more constructive to look at things that work and why. A lot of the articles I’ll start posting early on are ones I’ve already written in the past, and will just be uploading them here now, this being one of them. Most of these will contain spoilers of their respective games.

Today I’ll be talking Final Fantasy X and Persona 3, as both Seymour and Takaya have nearly identical roles in their respective stories. To begin, I’ll need to explain exactly what that is. I will be spoiling both of these titles here, just as a heads up.

In both games, the characters serve as an antagonistic entity that gives some kind of symbolic form to what it is you’re fighting against. In the end, if you remove Takaya and Seymour from the plot, the actions of the actual villain remain unaffected. Sin (FF X) and Nyx (Persona 3) act entirely independent of the actions of Seymour and Takaya, but they themselves don’t really have a will or personality of their own, they are more forces of nature than anything else.

Seymour and Takaya act as sort of a proxy for the fight against why these villains are there at all in the first place. In the case of Seymour, he wishes to bring about the end of the world by becoming the next Sin, as a way to force mankind to end the suffering of the world. Takaya represents a very different concept. The very thing calling Nyx to the world is a desire to see it all end, a kind of mix of apathy and depression. Takaya longs to witness this end come about.

The major difference between these two, however, is that you really don’t see any of Seymour reflected in the world of FF X. You never see the world that is suffering, you see a really happy and vibrant world that occasionally suffers when a natural disaster known as Sin hits, and even then they pick right back up. But in the world of Persona 3, you constantly see shades of Takaya. The spread of Apathy Syndrome, multiple social links revolving around people having given up (Especially Sun) and a generally grim tone to the atmosphere. Takaya honestly does feel like a product of the world you live in and works perfectly as a symbolic embodiment of why Nyx exists.

To specify, Nyx exists because of a cry for everything to end that comes from the hearts of people. People who have given up on life, people who can’t handle the stress of the world they live in, people with unrealistic amounts of baggage they have to deal with in their life, and Nyx is responding to that call.

Conversely, FF X conversely uses the theme of Sin as its villain, a sort of punishment for mankind for its past sins. Yet Seymour doesn’t really do a very good job at conveying that. He has faced hardships, yes, but his whole past was him being looked down upon by both human and Guado as he’s a half breed, yet this world that has apparently shat on him has placed him in a position of power in the world of Spira. He is revered and respected by many. At no point does he feel like a natural product of Spira, and is just kind of this odd anomaly. The world around him clearly is in no state of suffering when compared to him. They only suffer during the attacks of Sin, which they seem able enough to recover from, much like any other natural disaster (Which is in part to Square doing a poor job of depicting the world in shambles). So he stops feeling like a proxy for the themes of the game, and just some lone element in the world. Thus when you consider his lack of relevance to the actions and goals of Sin, he becomes entirely pointless to the plot.

This feeling of Seymour being out of place only strengthens when you realize Sin is little more than the outcome of a single weapons project gone horribly wrong in the old Zanarkand war, and really a whole lot of context to those events is never given. In the end, the whole theme of Sin in the game is undercut by this, making someone like Seymour as an antagonistic embodiment of that even more pointless.

Also, let us compare the actions they take in the game. Takaya looks to stop you from saving the world, his desire to witness the end is at constant odds with you. He may have no direct ties to Nyx, but he serves fantastically as a villain for much of the game as he really does embody everything that is causing the coming of Nyx, and his actions focus entirely on the overall themes. Seymour’s actions feel a little more like they are there just for the sake of having someone to be your antagonist. Mind you, it’s something the game desperately needs, but most of the time he involves himself and shows his head he just feels like he’s distracting you from the goal at hand, and yet his presence is ever present.

Half the game ends up feeling like filler because of Seymour.

Villains like Seymour and Takaya need to accurately reflect the themes of the game, and as a result, the game needs strongly executed themes to make them work. FF X’s themes are at times flimsy, at other times it can feel forced. So it’s no surprise that Seymour, a character meant to represent all of this, feels the same way. You don’t see the world in a constant state of suffering like Seymour, you see the world that is overall pretty damn happy outside of the occasional Sin attack, so in the end that leaves the question as to what is Seymour’s role in the story? He’s not relevant to the actions of the villain, he’s a poor reflection of the world you witness, and really he doesn’t even have a connection to anyone in the party. Takaya, very conversely, is a very clear result of a world with heavy underlying tones of Apathy and Depression. His place in the narrative is essential, and the game really would suffer without it.