[FF IX] Necron

I like to think Necron was placed after Kuja, because Kuja was easy to beat. Have everyone with Auto-Reflect, Auto-Regen, Auto-Rise, and have the blue haired kid cast Holy a BUNCH. He really was super easy. Necron wasn't too much harder, but still not a cake walk.

He was added to make the ending be satisfying by beating a difficult boss. Why have an awesome ending after beating an easy boss?

Now Omega on the other hand....
 
I'm replaying this after almost a decade of not even touching the game and I still remember the utter disappointment in the end. While I thought FF9 was a really strong game (esp. after FF8), yeah the ending really sucked. Nothing like going through 4 discs to end with:

<totally random dude>
so like, I'm evil and stuff. So why don't you slap me around a bit and save the world
</totally random dude>
 
Whilst he does feel a tad random, I think he's a far better choice for final boss than Kuja would have been. Necron provided the opporunity for Kuja to show his true colours, which provided a much more satisfying ending as a whole in my opinion. Also, as others mentioned previously, Necron is hardly unique; he very much followed a tradition set by Zeromus and Neo-Exdeath.
 
Holy wall of text batman no!

Oh man this is a rich topic that I've discussed at length with a few people before and with the assistance of some outside individuals, I'd like to think this isn't a bad explanation for Necron's existence.

Incoming ridiculously long wall of text, read at your own risk.

I've come to the conclusion that Necron, the final opponent faced in Final Fantasy IX, is actually the taskmaster of the central function of the Iifa Tree--the mechanism that interfered with the cycle of souls. In that respect, I believed he could be considered the true form of the Iifa Tree, that aspect that lay beyond the material plane and interfered with the cycle of Gaia's souls on the spiritual level.

Now I ask that you bear with me and read my explanation before discarding it as pointless theory babble.

The origin of this theory stems from the hilariously weak explanation we are given of Necron by the first 2008 20th Anniversary Final Fantasy Ultimania book. This information can be found in the character section (Necron, pg.301)

(Translation by hitoshura of TheLifestream.net)

"Eternal Darkness. A monster created by fear of death. A being awoken by the fear, despair, and hatred of Kuja, who discovered, with the fulfillment of his ambition near, that he had little time left to live. It rejects the cycle of life through the crystal and attempts to return every world, including Terra and Gaia, to nothing. The final enemy to confront Zidane’s team."

Here we are, the explanation we've waited a whopping 7 1/2 years for.

After this brief passage of information about Necron was translated, it seemed that, at the time the developers of FFIX included him, they must have had no plot-driven idea for what he was supposed to be. It seemed he was literally just there as a thematic device and a reference to the Cloud of Darkness
from Final Fantasy III and Neo Exdeath from Final Fantasy V.

Essentially, I believed Necron was just explained to us as another agent of the Void, and it took us nearly a decade to get that weak explanation.

For that matter, his role in that capacity; as well as his role as an
allusion to the final bosses of FFIII and FFV; was obvious to begin with.
The explanation provided by the 20th Anniversary Ultimania didn't seem creative in the slightest.

This is why the search for proof of his purpose as the central function of the Iifa Tree became all the more interesting.

To start off, here's some dialogue by Garland concerning his observations on life:

(In Pandemonium)
"But think for a moment... Isn't life death itself? It must kill other
life-forms to survive..."

"Sometimes it even kills those with whom it shares blood..."

"To live is to give life meaning, yet one must take others' lives to
survive..."

"A mature civilization becomes aware of this paradox..."

"Terra's souls will sleep until they forget such nonsense. They will begin a
new life in a new dimension."

"It's a world in which life and death become one..."

"That is the dimension in which we are meant to live, as beings that
transcend life and death!"

When he reveals himself, we find that Necron has drawn very similar
conclusions:

(Above the Hill of Despair, Necron's battleground)
"All life bears death from birth."

"Life fears death, but lives only to die."

"It starts with anxiety."

"Anxiety becomes fear."

"Fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate... hate leads to suffering..."

"The only cure for this fear is total destruction."

"...Now, the theory is undeniable."

"Kuja's action proves it. All things live to perish."

"At last, life has uncovered this truth. Now, it is time to end this world."

...

"I exist for one purpose..."

"To return everything back to the zero world, where there is no life and no
crystal to give life."

"In a world of nothing, fear does not exist. This is the world that all life
desires."

With this in mind, recall next that Garland created the Soul Divider
(confirmed on pg. 41 of the FFIX Ultimania) -- the mechanism of the Iifa Tree
which served to disrupt the cycle of souls. Garland being this entity's
maker, it stands to reason that it may have been aware of Garland's views and may have sought its own conclusions on the matter.

The Soul Divider may have then observed the actions of its "brother," Kuja;
another of Garland's creations, as part of this analysis.

Garland states that the Iifa Tree's true form was not the Tree itself; the
tree was only its material form:

Garland:
"We must sort the souls."

"I want to disrupt Gaia's cycle and drain its souls, filling the void with
the souls of Terra."

"To speed the cycle of souls is to speed the work as a whole. Thus, war..."

"And in time... Gaia's souls are gone, and Gaia becomes Terra."

Garland:
"You saw it with your own eyes. You saw the Iifa Tree and the Mist it emits."

"The role of the Iifa Tree is that of Soul Divider. The Mist you see
comprises the stagnant souls of Gaia..."

Zidane:
"Oh yeah? But we stopped the Mist! So much for that!"

Garland:
"All you saw was the back of the tree..."

"Even now, the Iifa Tree blocks the flow of Gaia's souls, while it lets
those of Terra flow freely."

"Come and see for yourself. See the true form of this planet."

Zidane:
"What is this?"

Garland:
"Think of it as an observatory. A place to measure the radiance of Gaia and
Terra."

Zidane:
"What are you talking about? And what is this weird light?"

Garland:
"That is the center of the planet. The end and the beginning of the cycle of
souls."

"The light remains Gaia's, for now, but when the blue changes to crimson,
all will belong to Terra, and its restoration will be complete."

"That is why I wrapped up the light in the Iifa Tree, to prevent the cycle of
the judgement of souls on Gaia from inside the planet."

"Such is the Iifa Tree's true purpose, its true form. All you saw was its
material form."

"The flow of Gaia's souls cannot be changed simply by stopping the disposal
of Mist."


This would mean that the mechanism of the Iifa Tree that interrupted the cycle of souls was something not in the physical world. Zidane and his team would have needed to be somewhere other than the physical plane to encounter Necron. They would have needed to die.

And indeed, it would seem that upon Kuja's desperation cast of Ultima, Zidane and co. had been killed in the fight.

Unlike the occasion on Terra where Kuja used Ultima on the party, their
bodies were apparently destroyed here. During that previous battle, they had
remained on-screen up through it fading out from the battle map.

Following the battle with Kuja in Crystal World, we find Zidane and the others
laying defeated in an area that isn't the same place they had fought Kuja.
Though the shockwave from his Ultima attack had sent him reeling off into the
distance, the heroes' bodies had all remained in the same area. And the Yan's "Snort" ability certainly proves that there were no graphical limitations that should have prevented displaying the characters being flung from the battle area.

For that matter, while the area in which Zidane awakens does bear a similar
appearance to the area in which they fought with Deathgaze, and, thus, may have been an area in the clouds somewhere below the crystal of creation, there's a simple obstacle that makes it further unlikely the party members were launched here: they would have all needed to land together.

Given how Kuja was flung like a rag doll by the explosion, despite how far
from it he was; for the spell to have landed in the midst of the heroes, they
should have all been launched in different directions if they were truly
thrown from the dais where the crystal of creation resided.

But they weren't. Their bodies were incinerated. The heroes were killed.

To summarize this matter thus far, the implication is that when Zidane and
the others were hit by Kuja's Ultima, they died and came face to face with the Iifa Tree's true form on the spiritual plane, as so many other souls from
Gaia had previously.

Unlike those other souls, however, Zidane and his team were able to defeat the enemy even as it tried to dismiss them from Gaia's cycle of souls and supplant them with souls from Terra.

Thus, Necron's form fell apart. It was destroyed, the area surrounding it was
destroyed, the Iifa Tree it functioned as part of went into a state of frenzy
and died a week later (the passage of a week confirmed by pg. 46 of the FFIX
Ultimania), and Memoria; created from the Mist being emitted by the Iifa Tree, had exploded.

At the same time, Kuja used his powers, possibly stemming from a lingering
connection to the crystal of creation; to teleport the heroes' souls out of
Memoria before the explosion, reconstruct their bodies, and then put their
souls back into their bodies as he'd done with the Chaos Guardians, who he had resurrected to fight the heroes in Memoria.

Necron being the core mechanism of the tree would account for the tree's
death, as well as the destruction of Memoria, whereas Necron not being so would leave us to question why the tree died for no obvious reason; first going into violent spasms immediately after Necron was defeated, and then dying within a few days.

Had the tree not been undone, Gaia's assimilation by Terra would have been
carried out; so something that happened during the ending killed it. Necron's
death seems more likely to fit the bill than Memoria's explosion at any rate;
which itself needed an explanation that's provided by Necron as the Soul
Divider.

Memoria's explosive end shouldn't have been enough to kill the tree on its own, despite its proximity to the large plant. The Iifa Tree seen on the surface is just an aggregate of a few roots according to the FFIX Ultimania (pg. 41). The tree didn't appear damaged by the explosion, and even had it been, there were more roots all throughout the world.

Something else happened that killed the tree. What could it have been but the destruction of Necron?
 
It says in the official FF9 Ultimania that Necron came from Kuja's fear of death, sadness, confusion and hate from that fear of death. Necron comes from the word necrophobia ,which is basically the common term for the fear of dieing, or death. Also this makes sense, because FF9 usually has special mentions and symbolizing from the past Final Fantasy games, and in FF4 Zeromus was born from hated and all the worlds evil, kind of like how Necron was born, and in FF5 you face a boss in the final dungeon called Necrophobia. So Necron is just a special mention to bosses of Final Fantasy 4, and 5.

Also Necron can kind of symbolize defeating Kuja's fear and therefore destroying the seed that was making Kuja panic and be evil, which symbolizes Kuja being free from his fear of dieing, and becoming a better person. Also Vivi's too, since he was afraid of stopping.

So yeah, Necron isn't some alien from nowhere, or some random big bad, he's just Necrophobia. :)
Necron was last instead of Kuja, so Kuja could be freed from his confusion and pain. So much deeper, than just killing him off because he was 'bad'. I love you old Square.
 
Ninja Yuffie said:
It says in the official FF9 Ultimania that Necron came from Kuja's fear of death, sadness, confusion and hate from that fear of death. Necron comes from the word necrophobia ,which is basically the common term for the fear of dieing, or death. Also this makes sense, because FF9 usually has special mentions and symbolizing from the past Final Fantasy games, and in FF4 Zeromus was born from hated and all the worlds evil, kind of like how Necron was born, and in FF5 you face a boss in the final dungeon called Necrophobia. So Necron is just a special mention to bosses of Final Fantasy 4, and 5.

Also Necron can kind of symbolize defeating Kuja's fear and therefore destroying the seed that was making Kuja panic and be evil, which symbolizes Kuja being free from his fear of dieing, and becoming a better person. Also Vivi's too, since he was afraid of stopping.

So yeah, Necron isn't some alien from nowhere, or some random big bad, he's just Necrophobia. :)
Necron was last instead of Kuja, so Kuja could be freed from his confusion and pain. So much deeper, than just killing him off because he was 'bad'. I love you old Square.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure is Necron an allusion to necrophobia, though. Necro- is a common prefix, associated with death. Perhaps it's just a simple reference to death, and that's it.

I mean plenty of references to necro-related things, like necromancer... all in all I'd be just happy if it didn't have anything to do with necrophilia ;)
 
Well, even on my first playthrough, I was never that put out by Necron. Indeed, while I think Final Fantasy has certainly had its share of bosses that appear out of nowhere, I personally think if you look closely, and bear in mind the themes of the game, it's fairly easy to make a conclusion as to what he is.

Just to clarify, I don't ascribe to the theory that he's the manifestation of Kuja's fear of death, nor that he's the 'other side' of the Iifa Tree. I personally find those theories a little too complicated, and needless when a simpler explanation is present.

To whit- remember the final battle with Kuja? His whole reason for being there is to destroy the crystal that holds the Universe together, and in doing so completely destroy all of existence. In a word- Armageddon. Now, next time you play the game, notice what happens at the end of the battle: Your party loses! Kuja casts Ultima which wipes out your party, and destroys the very Crystal that you were trying to protect. In essence, Kuja has succesfully kicked off the apocalypse.

What does that have to do with Necron? Well, think about it- What does the apocalypse actually mean? The complete and utter destruction of everything. In short, total oblivion. What does Necron say before he first appears? "You stand before the final dimension, and I am the darkness of eternity." His entire purpose is to bring everything back to the 'Zero world'- a complete and utter state of nothingness. In essence, Necron is the FFIX version of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Kuja has succesfully kicked off the end of the Universe, and whereas we have four agents mythologically ascribed to such an event, the FFIX universe has just one- Necron. He is War, Famine, Pestilence and Death all rolled into one. Heck, his Grand Cross technique inflicts status ailments reminiscent of all four.

Therefore, when your party faces against Necron, they're not just fighting some random from out of nowhere, they are fighting against the very agent whose purpose is to bring about the apocalypse that Kuja has started. I would argue that not only is this not a Giant Space Flea, but it is actually a perfect summation and climax to the core message of the game: the characters have spent the entire story overcoming their fear of death. Now, they must literally overcome 'Death'. The final fight with Necron is symbolic of the internal struggle that all the characters have wrested with throughout the game. And their success is symbolic of the game's message- you must overcome your fear of death.

I personally would argue that there is nothing within the game to contradict this, and everything to support this. When Necron appears, he announces himself in apocalyptic terms- he himself boasts that he is the ultimate ending of everything, the being who will return everything to nothing. Considering the crystal has been broken just moments before, I think it's eassy to make the connection between the crystal's demise, and Necron's role as the harbinger of the apocalypse. I notice that others have commented on Necron's similarity to Necrophobe, and posited that Necron is the physical manifestation of Kuja's fear of death. I would argue with this on several points:

- While Necrophobe's name does indeed translate roughly to 'Fear of death', Necron's is simply an abstraction of the word 'Death'. If Necron in FFIX was called Necrophobe, then I think the argument would have more merit. As it stands though, I think Necron is meant as a shout out to Necrophobe, but he is his own character. With all the other blatant shout outs present in the game, if Square wanted Necron to represent Kuja's fear of death, then calling him Necrophobe instead would be a no-brainer.

- More importantly, when Necron talks about Kuja, he does so in impersonal terms, removed from himself. He doesn't talk as if his and Kuja's actions are the same, or as if they are in any way connected. He simply comments that Kuja has proven life's ultimate desire for death (by destroying the crystal and starting the end of end of the Universe), and having done so, it is now time for Necron to fulfil his purpose (the afore mentioned end of the Universe).

- Finally, how does a character who has spent all game relying on outside tools to summon magical beasties suddenly gain the ability to summon his internal, repressed fears as an all-encompassing, universe-destroying deity?

As a massive FFIX fan, I do feel a little sad that so many people write off Necron as a meaningless WTF encounter. His comments on Kuja's final actions offer a very interesting uber-Nietzche outlook on things. Indeed, his comment that 'All life longs for death' is confirmed by both Kuja's actions and, on a more removed note, the self-destructive behaviour that we ourselves exhibit as a species on a day to day basis. His assertion that the Zero world is what we all desire is very interesting when applied to ourselves- our lives are becoming ever more increasingly without clear meaning or purpose, and the world we live in is only getting crazier and crazier as the years march on. There are probably many sad souls in the world who would agree with Necron, that they'd choose a 'zero world' without substance or memory, over the horrible, pain-filled lives they've been forced to live so far.

Therefore, I would argue that it is only because of Necron that Final Fantasy IX is able to communicate it's life affirming message so effectively- Necron is the ultimate representation of death, nihilism, and oblivion, more strongly concentrated than anything else in the game. By defeating him, the characters once and for all prove that you should make your own meaning in life, and live each day to its fulll potential. Sure, his appearance is a little out-of-the-blue (in all sense of the term), but I would strongly argue that his existence is both supported in game, and necessary as a symbolic, thematic device. But that's just me, and I know I love to overanalyse things...

By the way, I know that the FF Ultimania released by Square has a vastly different account of what Necron is than I do. All I can say is, firstly, any explanation written almost a decade after the game comes out, and written without the input of the very people who created the character in the first place... well, I would hold that about as valid as any fan theory. Secondly, the explanation they give is short, vague, and prone to giving gamers even more headaches trying to think about it. I personally think my 'Four Horsemen' theory is both simpler, and fits in far better thematically. I also think people should be free to interpret things however they want, so if anyone's opinion differs from mine, that's absolutely dine and fandy. Variation, after all, is the spice of life...
 
I read somewhere that he was Garland after death. So I'm believing that theory until someone proves it wrong. I have no idea how it makes sense besides the fact that Garland did get knocked off the cliff and perhaps killed.

Meh... This is giving me a headache.

Oh, he was also very hard and annoying to fight against.
 
Tyler Breeze said:
I read somewhere that he was Garland after death. So I'm believing that theory until someone proves it wrong. I have no idea how it makes sense besides the fact that Garland did get knocked off the cliff and perhaps killed.

Meh... This is giving me a headache.

Oh, he was also very hard and annoying to fight against.
Click to expand...

I think so too Garland before the boss battle with him says he exists to wait for a time when there is no life and death.
Isn't that essentially the situation when necron is facing off against the pary?
 
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