Shakespeare in Final Fantasy

[Dionysos]

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Since it had been William Shakespeare’s birthday again today it is the perfect time to make a thread to discuss references to Shakespeare (both the poet as an individual and his works) in the Final Fantasy franchise. There are some, and some references are more committed to the bard than others.


Final Fantasy IX:

Final Fantasy IX has the more direct allusions to Shakespeare. The bard himself even exists in this world through a character based on and named after him. Lord Avon (the writer of ‘I Want to Be Your Canary’) alludes to Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire.

Artwork of the fake play ticket offers a rare glimpse into
FFIX’s playwright based on Shakespeare.

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Lord Avon’s play itself seems to have mastered the art of alluding to more than one thing at the same time in a way that Shakespeare may have approved. The character King Leo is able to reference Shakespeare’s King Lear and General Leo Cristophe from FFVI at the same time. Likewise, King Leo's daughter Cornelia is referencing Shakespeare’s Cordelia (a daughter of King Lear) and also the most famous town in the original Final Fantasy (Cornelia).

Lord Avon's play also uses a clever wordplay with the line “No cloud, no squall shall hinder us” (a nod to former protagonists Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart) which the audience (both within the game and the players) recognises. Like Shakespeare's work, this line is often quoted by fans.

Outside of Lord Avon’s play, some of the actors of the Tantalus Theatre Troupe performing the play themselves are allusions to Shakespeare. Marcus and Cinna are both named after characters in Julius Caesar (both Marcus Brutus and Cinna are conspirators against Caesar).

Outside of Tantalus, the mischievous rat-kid who sneaks up to the rooftops to watch Tantalus’ performance of I Want to Be Your Canary is Puck. Puck turns out to be a prince of Burmecia in FFIX’s world, but his name alludes to Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow), the impish trickster fairy from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

FFIX even has a few sub-plots which tease Shakespearean plot devices. At Conde Petie we have a marriage presented for parody (Vivi and Quina) alongside a more serious match (Zidane and Garnet), rather like the ending of As You Like It.

We also have a hilarious love letter mix-up scene… Eiko loses a letter intended for Zidane… Consequently Beatrix thinks that Steiner left the letter for her, Blank thinks that someone left it for him, and Steiner thinks that Beatrix left it for him. It is a hilarious scene, and not unlike the love letter prank scene of Twelfth Night. The setting of this scene near a garden with hedges is similar on both occasions.



Elsewhere in Final Fantasy:

There are then references to Shakespeare in other Final Fantasy games which are less direct, and make a little less sense!

In FFVII during the Wutai pagoda side-quest Yuffie can fight a number of martial arts masters, each apparently named after a person connected with theatre (and so we have Checkov, etc). The second opponent is a girl called Shake (supposedly named after Shakespeare) and her battle transformation appears to be a penguin-like bird monster… Despite Shakespeare’s coat of arms containing a falcon wielding a spear, I see no correlation and this tenuous association seems to be in name only.

This 'reference' is perhaps much ado about nothing.

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Occasionally enemies have worn the names of Shakespearean characters too. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has a fairy-type enemy named Titania after the queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m also aware of the robotic opponents in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII which are named after Desdemona (from Othello) and Gertrude (from Hamlet).


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That’s all I can think of at the moment, but there are likely many more.


Do you know of any Shakespeare references in Final Fantasy? What do you think about them?

Discuss!