About Symbols in FFVII
Hey, give me a chance to explain.
Cloud

Articles at this section are different from others in their structure and rhythm system. Questions that this text tries to answer - why FFVII is so attractive, what it has that can not give any another game, why after many years since its release it gathers hundreds of thousands people. Let's set aside its "interesting story" and "live characters" and "deep idea" and turn to the most delicate constituent of any image and story - to symbols. We met many articles where symbols and mythologems presented in the game were listed. But they were given without any context and explanation with simple lists and did not give the answer to the question from the first lines of this text. That is why at this article that opens the section, we would like to shortly state the point of symbols and its meaning for our goal.



Symbols present in every part of our lives, and what is more - in our psyche. The most ancient layer of thought and world perception is symbolical. Symbols as a core of culture are the most powerful instrument for transferring of imperishable truths. Two ways of presenting information exist: obvious and easy logically perceptible and hidden, symbolical, unvoiced. The first layer in isolation from the second one is doomed to short existence: like this are all works of art that except story, characters and local idea has no global context, that is available to every audience at its subconsciousness level, because symbolical, psychological context is one for many conceptions of different cultures. Thus symbols are the most important constituent of art without which artworks loses its inner meaning, staying only with its external form. Universal symbols can not be invented or thought out.


Ancient symbols and metaphors under condition of their deciphering contain more information about properties of human consciousness than any associating of reviewed behavior with changes in characteristics of brain. During the time institutes of power and religion absorbed the most efficient symbols, gave them new tints and guarantee themselves popularity and longevity leading people by the path they need. It deserves to be mentioned, that artificial distortion of symbols for the sake of local ideas brings them to their ambivalence, in other words, to the incorrect interpretation of them. Among victims of distortion are swastika, number 13, black and red colors, cross, pentagram. In our articles we are not going to dwell on comparing of interpretation of symbols and their history, there are many encyclopedias and manuals for this. Mentions of religion notions, such angel, among archetype signs are explained by the fact that latest religions use in their canons ancient, approved, efficient psychophysical symbols. Accordingly, widespread interpretations of the Game's aspects conformably to one or another religion usually are the results of superficial analysis, based on well-known, graded down to the level of mass-culture material.

We are surrounded by many symbols and we follow them subconsciously. Every psychologist will definitely approve a single for all people efficacy and meaning of symbols and signs and this is the answer to the question about attraction of the Game. Delicate and skillful interweaving of symbols and metaphors into the canvas of the narration is the deposit of successful messaging of the most unexpressed ideas of the artwork to the audience. The authors of FFVII showed themselves as great masters of discovering characters almost not showing them (Reeve, Zack), they were also able to tincture the Game with metaphors, winning the time, that in other case they had to spend for long explanations of one or another aspect. Articles of this sections answer such questions like "Why Nanaki has tattoo 13" and "Why Rufus is always in white, and spirits are in black". Symbolical cipher - the most ancient and delicate way for information transfer in compressed volumes that require a lot of knowledge in different aspects of sciences, including psychology, mythology and philosophy. Symbols emphasizes that viewer sees evidently and leads him or her to the necessary path, serving as if invisible tooltip for the perception. Symbols usually point to something that exceeds their visible image; they mean more than obvious and immediate sense of things and give a way to approach to the main point of what viewer sees. However, this invisible and interesting layer of narration remains hidden for those who are not familiar with language of symbols - from this takes place a maxim "I like this, but can not explain why".



The fact that the authors of FFVII did not miss any way to transfer the information and any possibility to fill every image with meaning is evident. For the viewer work not only words of characters, but also the colors of their clothes and their names; and also mentioned in the Game numbers and presence of cognate archetypical images and ideograms. Such multilayer saturation with information - from direct context to the most delicate metaphors - creates exactly that magnetic attraction of the Game, sudden emotions and feeling of some escaping attention but undoubtedly presenting layer of information: "It seems like there is something behind this, I need to play again, may be it'll become clear".

As it was said at the beginning of the article, every man subconsciously reacts to the symbols and permanent images independently to the level of his or her actual knowledge. Graceful and accurate usage of symbolical ciphering - one of the pledges of longevity of artwork, sign of its appropriateness inside infosphere of the planet and a possibility to give to the viewers everything that author wanted to say including smallest nuances that are impossible for a visual representation.



FFVII is a true masterpiece of using of every way to Tell, to Transfer, to Bring an idea to an every viewer whenever who he or she is with his or her views, age-grade and social situation. Return to the Game again and again, multiple tries to understand moments, deep and true attachment to the world and story are the results of skillfully built dialog with a viewer at the level of his or her deepest feelings, the results of applying to the most delicate and imperceptible premonitions and presences. Probably it is not unnecessary to say, that sphere of the effect of the Game is not receptors of senses and cerebral hemispheres but the local lifestream inside human body that Vincent told about to Cloud at the Forgotten Capital*.


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