 Hi, Editing JoeCat here. Before the video begins, I'd like to thank and also recommend a few videos from a couple of really good channels, both of which heavily inspired the panel. First, Alex Mukalla, and his videos about the light motifs of Final Fantasy XIV, as I basically stole half of the video's content for this panel. If you like what I'm going to talk about and want to see more of XIV's repeated musical motifs, his videos are great for that, and he understands music way better than I do. And secondly, Sideways, a channel all about music theory, and where I learned about most of the stuff I'm going to repeat in the panel. His videos are great, and go into more detail about how music is used in media, the stories they tell, and the emotions they can trick you into having. Anyway, enjoy me being less articulate. Okay, I think it's about time now. Yeah? Alright. So, welcome to the panel. Hey, some final people coming round on time. Alright. Uh, welcome to ACON. Uh, it's nice here in Texas. I stole that joke from Flat of the Concourse. Uh, but, welcome to the panel, how Final Fantasy XIV tells stories through its music. I do want to warn you, this is going to spoil everything. I'm not going to tell the entire story of the game, but you might as well know the entire story of the game with how much I'm going to spoil here. Everyone here plays XIV. Yeah! Oh, why am I even, you already probably know all this already, but, um, anyone who doesn't play XIV, maybe this might convince you, but, uh, if you do plan on playing it and don't want to be spoiled, might be the time to check out, you won't make me upset. I mean, I will be a little bit upset, but not at you, because I understand. That's just my insecurities. But yes, this is going to be about how Final Fantasy XIV tells stories through its music, because its music is amazing, not only because it sounds good, which it does, but also just how it's being used. So, how does it do this? It does this through repeated light motifs, backing lyrics, and recompositions. And a lot of times when the light motifs show up, they are recompositions as well. If there's any music majors in here, just pretend I didn't say that. But, um, yeah. Those are the three main ways I believe it does it, and some of them kind of overlap. And maybe there's a few more ways, but I just like to categorize them into these three. So if you don't know, what is a light motif? According to Google, a light motif is a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition associated with a particular person, idea, or situation. This is not to be confused with a theme, because a theme can be abstract and not represent anything. It can represent the entire intellectual property as a whole, like the Star Wars theme. That's not to any particular character. It kind of represents the whole thing, whereas a light motif has to represent something more abstract, like a singular character, a singular idea, maybe a faction of characters. And here is going to be an example to train your ear, this theme. Hopefully. Does that sound familiar? It should. If you've ever touched a video game before, it is the same theme that plays at the beginning of the first Final Fantasy game. It's called the Prelude. It's the same theme. But that's not actually why this theme is actually important, actually. It is important and relevant, not because it's the theme of the Final Fantasy franchise, which does make it important, but it's repeated in 2014 itself, multiple times everywhere. Alex McCullough, who also is a musical person, he's a composer, he actually works in the industry, made a joke that if you made a drinking game of how many times you hear this theme in 2014, you will have to go to the hospital. You hear it whenever you are fighting, actually no, before you even fight anything, you hear it in just about every single main menu theme for every single expansion, including Heaven's Ward. It plays in the Stormblood menu. It plays in the Dungeon Main Boss theme, whenever you're fighting a main boss in a dungeon. It plays when you fight the final boss of a dungeon. Alex, they just walked in. Everyone cheer for Alex, hey. The better, it's going to be. Five, five. And then it's OK. My brain says that, but my soul says I don't know. It plays during the final boss theme of the dungeon. It is everywhere in the game. But I did say, light motifs have meaning. And what does this one mean? Absolutely nothing. You've been that brutal. This doesn't actually mean anything. It doesn't have anything, sort of attachment. It's just sort of a theme of the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole, so they feel the need to kind of put it to remind you, hey, this is a Final Fantasy game. But what is a light motif? I just kind of wanted to train your ear to hear the same thing over and over again. What is a light motif that is used to represent something? Is this. It plays whenever you are in the dungeon Keeper of the Lake where you fight a big old dragon named Midgard Sormer. And you hear this during his introduction. So Midgard Sormer, if you don't know who he is, or you forgot because this game is 5,000 hours long, is a big dragon dad. He's the dad of all dragons. He's got a family called the First Brood. It consists of, I think, seven dragons, children, that he brought to the world, and all that stuff. And he's basically the father of all dragons. So whenever someone of the First Brood shows up, you hear this theme again. You hear it during your trial with Horace Velger, whenever he's training you. Base Heavensward, when Aesthenian transforms into Nidhogg, you think, oh, it's just a Heavensward theme, right? It's like it's just in Heavensward because it's all about dragons. No, in Endwalker, the last expansion of the game so far, you meet the youngest of the First Brood, Vritra, and they play it again, eight years after Heavensward came out, after he's revealed to be in a real satrap. And so even before they reveal him, even before they lift the curtain, you're like, it's somebody of the First Brood. So whenever you hear that choir going, ooh, it's like, it's a child of Midgard Sormer. So yeah, that's Light Motifs. Here's another one. Let's talk about the Warrior of Light. This is Dirk Lander. He represents the player character. He is a straight white man, and although half the fandom would like to disagree with that first part, with how many people they ship him with, but you have a theme as well. You, the player, that's right. They made a theme song for you. It plays kind of, firstly, most prominently, at the end of a realm reborn whenever you're fighting the Ultima weapon, who's kind of like the final boss fight. You are fighting a kind of possessed angry slash la-ha-bra with the power of friendship whenever you play. That's the power of friendship coming up. So let's talk about Omega. Omega, for all intents and purposes, at the point of the story that it's introduced, is kind of an elegant creation. And some of you who play the game are like, that's not actually, that's more complicated than that. I'm just trying to make it as simple as possible. So just, this was made. It's just a robot made by the elegance whose purpose is to get strong and kill gods. So, sometime during the Stormblood raids, this thing, this robot spider guy, is like, I wanna learn how you, Warrior of Light, are so strong. I'm gonna collect data and put you in a tournament arc where you fight simulations of a bunch of other strong guys from the Final Fantasy franchise and basically do a bunch of fan service. But basically, he's trying to figure out what makes you so strong other than plot armor. Like, something must be making the Warrior, like, so strong, and I can't figure it out. So what does Omega do? Omega imitates the Warrior of Light. It becomes an abstraction and this hot anime version of the Warrior of Light. And it's like, all right, I'm gonna fight you in your shoes to figure out why you were so strong. And then when you finally fight Omega in this form, you hear this. It's your theme. He stole your look, he stole your moves, and he stole your theme song. But it really goes to show that this is the player character's theme. And this is my very favorite version of the theme, too, so I like it. And just, yeah, so it's like, it's kinda like you're fighting yourself. So Omega is imitated you, so it's like, you know, you can't even trust yourself nowadays. But to really sell it home in Shadowbringers, when you are talking with Ardurd, who is a reflection of the Warrior of Light, he's basically an alternate version of you, you hear the theme again in this like kind of somber, sad version of the theme. It's the same theme, because oftentimes, whenever you're talking with Ardurd, it's like you're having a conversation with yourself, and you usually have it in this room. Yeah, so repeated representation of stuff is like, okay, so what about lyrics? We're all at an anime convention. We all know how to be edgy, and what edgy stuff is, and we don't care, right? So let's talk about Esale slash Shiva. Yes, I know, name is Ice Queen. So, when Esale was young, she nearly died in the snow, cold, before being saved by people who basically sympathize with dragons. And when she was, she saw a vision, that she was a reincarnation of an ancient person named Saint Shiva. And as a result, she feels as though that it is her purpose to bring an end to the Dragon Song War as Shiva would, because Shiva really liked dragons, maybe a little bit too much. And so, whenever we fight Shiva, before we even learn who Esale is, or her backstory, the song that plays when we fight her basically tells us this through lyrics. Before we've even learned anything about her, before she gets her exposition about who she is, where she comes from, it's already telling us she nearly died before she got here. Like she was facing death, and then we hear a little bit more of it. She feels as though, because she is a reincarnation of Shiva, this path is not hers. This is somebody else. Imagine if you woke up one day, and you were like, oh my God, I have all of Jesus' memories. That's basically what she's going through. Is she her own person? Is she the Saint Shiva from a thousand years ago? She can't figure it out, but she knows that she feels as though she has unfinished business in this world and can't really move on until she doesn't. And I know, that's very, very edgy. But I mean, sometimes edgy lyrics mean something, kind of tragic, and sometimes tragic things can sound edgy when you put into song. But it's just so genius how they were able to put her entire story in this one song even before the expansion starts. The only instance you've had interacting with her is this fight. So let's talk about Minfilia slash Rin. Minfilia, the blonde girl on the left, is similarly kind of a reincarnation of a long line of Minfilias. Think Avatar, like from The Last Airbender, where she has the powers and capabilities and subtle memories of previous incarnations of herself, but not quite. She's kind of still her own person. Until partway through Shadowbringers, she becomes her own person and drops the name of Minfilia and gains the name Rin, essentially becoming her own person. And she constantly, throughout the story, feels the need to prove herself that she's capable. She's a capable young woman who has powers of her own that doesn't need to rely on others or this Minfilia power in order to do what she needs to do and constantly goes through that struggle. And through a convoluted mess of story, she has to take on this form of Shiva in order to save the world from some kind of nonsense power. And basically, she has to become Shiva and she loses a bit of control and starts to believe that she is Shiva, just like Izale, and then you have to fight her and stuff. But what I really love is the lyrics in this song tell that story as well. So once again, it is telling the same story of Izale being lost in the snow, nearly freezing to death and getting those memories and feeling as though she can't move on until her job is done as Saint Shiva. But then we hear these lyrics. How long have I waited to open my wings? It's telling about how Reem longs to prove herself as a capable person, regardless of her reincarnations of Minfilia and gaining her power. She wants to prove herself that she is capable by herself. And then we hear this. Is Reem basically telling the story of Reem's struggle being reincarnated as Minfilia over and over and over again to fight the Sanitas, to fight these battles that aren't hers in this constant struggle being reincarnated and how she's tired. She's tired of the soul and all that stuff, just constantly being put this responsibility to save the world, despite just being a kid. And also, there's some more repeated light motifs in both these songs as well. If you have a good ear, you can hear them being recomposed in both versions of the Shiva fights. It's just the same song. The curtains are just blue. I don't know. I may be reading way too deep into this and just drawing conclusions where there weren't any symbolism meant, but it's hard to know that unless they explicitly say it. I think it's pretty neat and it's fun to figure out. But this is just scratching the surface of how deep some of this goes. So I need you to bear with me a moment because I'm gonna sound like a crazy person with this next example, this final example, because this made me want to do this panel with how much this blew my mind. So in one of the more recent patches, you get to fight the gods, known as the 12, the 12 gods that rule over Aorz and the major pantheon that most people pray to in their religion. And I heard this. And I was like, where have I heard that before? That sounds so familiar. And it took me so long scouring throughout the entire game. I flew to basically every single area and like did almost every dungeon and trial, trying to find where the hell have I heard this before? And you hear it in Azizullah. You also hear it during the fight between Omega, the Allagan creation and Shinrio, a big angry dragon that wants to destroy the world. And you hear it again. You hear it actually twice in this one version with the winds and you hear it again with another instrument that I don't remember later on in the fight. Time's a trumpet. So what do the Alligans have to do with the 12? Why is this ancient civilization theme having to do with Omega and Azizullah, this city they built? What does that have to do with this religious figure, this pantheon? Almost nothing, right? So first, I'm gonna lay the foundations. Let's talk about the 12. Menfina is the goddess of the moon, right? And she has a little moon pup named Dalamud. And that's just part of the mythology that these people know. It's like Aorzea has two moons, a white moon and a red moon. The white moon is Menfina, the red moon is Dalamud. And there's an interpretation of her here, that's her and her little doggy, he's such a good boy. But the thing is Dalamud, the red moon, we discover is not a real moon. It's actually an elegant creation, which is why it destroyed the world, as most elegant creations do. So let's talk about the elegans. The elegans are an ancient civilization, think like the Prothians from Mass Effect or Forerunners from Halo or what have you, exchangeable with any other advanced ancient, dead, extinct civilization. And they built a bunch of stuff. Whenever you see sci-fi stuff in Final Fantasy, it's usually the elegans. It's a running joke that any conspiracy that happens, it's usually the elegans fault. Everything, just like trash here. Oh, there's a world destroying device here. There's some random spaceship here. It's the elegans, it's always the elegans. But again, what do the elegans have to do with the 12? Well, one of the 12, Menfina has a dog named Dalamud and Dalamud is a moon built by the elegans. So of course, when attributing that to each other, that's why you hear this theme that plays in an elegant city, in a fight where you fight the 12, where one of the main characters that you fight is Menfina, who has a dog named Dalamud. That connection, and I just, I just, it's not just thrown in there for no reason. So basically, Soken is a genius. And we should all thank him for making amazing music that has meaning more than just having a nice tune to listen to, which it also is. And that's basically it. And the last thing that I wanted to leave off with is not a story in the game, but a story of the game. Because the most recent raids are about the 12. And you can't get much bigger than the gods, right? But there's a very specific theme that plays that makes me feel like this raid is a celebration of the game as a whole and the 10 years that it's come through. Because the theme that plays in it is the same theme that plays in the trailer for A Realm Reborn, which basically rebooted the game and allowed it to be good after the horrible launch of 1.0. And it, here, just have a listen. This is a raid that happened 10 years after that trailer. And it's the same motif. And this next part is actually my favorite part because it's the part of the trailer that really swells up with a lot of emotion. It was nice to hear it in the raid. That's how Final Fantasy tells stories through its music. And that is the panel. Thank you guys for coming. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you have a wonderful con. You may go.