FFVII and Marxism

[Fixxxer]

I've always been fascinated by the symbolism of FFVII. As most people here will know, FFVII is steeped in Norse mythology, a decent read of that can be found here.

Clearly the writers of FFVII were highly intelligent people to weave tales of Scottish/Irish mythology, Nordics, Germanic, Latin, Judaism, and Protestantism into such a great story.

I have an another idea which I've never been able to confirm on the internet or on literature I've read on FF. It's the idea of Marxism in FFVII.

• If you know a bit about Marxism, then you'll know Marx classed society into two different groups: the wealthy (bourgeoisie) and poor (proletariat). Both lived in different areas, one suffered at the hands of the other in various external ways. The proletariat couldn't do much about their situation but get on with it, some bitter and some eager to start a revolution. People of Midgar
• Marxism needs a revolution to start with, in order to topple the leaders (Lenin took Marx's ideas into a violent revolution to start the October Revolution in 1917 to form the Soviet Union). Avalanche

Can you perhaps see where I'm coming from so far?

• A very similar example is the 1927 film Metropolis, arguably one of the finest sci-fi films of all time. If you've seen that film, you'll know society is separated into two areas; the bourgeoisie living on a plate above the proletariat who can't even see the sun, live in the slums and do all the manual hard work. This is Midgar obviously

• 'Robot' comes from the Czech word for 'work' which in the film is to symbolise everything humanity is not. It's obvious in our generation that robots can be bad or good, but in the 1920's they were seen as taking a man's work away from him. There are many enemies in FFVII that are robots; Carry Armour being one

• The heroine in the film is a female. She is popular with the working class and children, people have no choice but to trust what she says. In Marxism, "Mother Jones" is this symbol of a heroine and revolution. In FFVII terms; Aeries.

• The head of Metropolis symbolises capitalism who exploits the working class and reaps the benefits. He marries the robot version of the heroine (marrying the evil with evil). President Rufus or Shinra? Perhaps the exploitation of Aeries?
  

The politics of the film washed over me when I first seen it. Now that I'm older and look back at FFVII, I can't help but see the Marxism in it. I would love to talk to Kitase about this and see if he shares the same idea.

I would love to hear some thoughts. Thanks for reading.

 

[Cantaloupe]

Well I see the resemblance between the movie and FFVII a little, but not between FFVII and Marxism. Karl Marx wanted that everyone was equal, that there were no different social layers and that everything belonged to everyone. I can see the capitalism in the game, but no one ever mentioned one of the ideas of Marx.

I'm definatly going to see Metropolis now, thanks for the tip!