We need to talk about Shinra

Davey Gaga

Davey Gaga

Under you like a G.U.Y.
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It's amazing that, every time I've played a Final Fantasy game, new thoughts/theories/realisations rush through my mind.

So, even as a child, with an age in single digits, I understood that Shinra were bad - really bad. Perhaps I didn't quite grasp things about corporate greed and politics, but it was there. As I grew older, I started to understand a little bit more about the grip they had on the world and the impact they had on people's lives.

Now, at the grand old age of (nearly) 23, I'm shocked to realise just how far Shinra really went in this world.

Firstly - the company. Shinra Inc, or "the Shinra electric power company", as Marlene calls them, provides energy and "comfortable lives" to people in Midgar by extracting the planet's life force and using it to power...well, everything. Great - we learn that early in the game. President Shinra is an absolutely evil man - wiping 1/7th the population of Midgar just to prove a point. What never entered my head until now is that, although President Shinra is the Chief Executive of the company...he's also, incidentally, the leader of the world.

A SINGLE COMPANY RULES THE WORLD. Departments we're aware of include Urban Development, Space Exploration, Weapons and "Science", as well as, obviously, energy. A single company built and owns cities (Midgar, Junon) and control tax in the area; they forced towns and villages to sell their land (Coral, Gongaga, Fort Condor. They have an enormous army - not just security, but trained military personnel. They fought and defeated resisting forces (Wutai) and left their people and economy crippled as a result, forcing citizens like Yuffie to resort to crime to try and restore their previous glory. They control the newspapers, television and travel. President Shinra (and then Rufus) don't just own a terrible company; they, quite literally, rule the world.

I know none of this is new stuff but I just wanted to bring up my recent sheer horror over realising that President Shinra isn't President of the world...but kind of is.

What might be a new point of discussion: following the events of the original game, Shinra is left crippled. Rufus talks about helping to build a new world in Advent Children but it's just talk; he only has a couple of Turks left. In Dirge of Cerberus, Reeve is basically the land's saviour - but have we really considered what happened to Midgar, for example? With the end of Shinra came the end of Mako Reactors - how did they sustain power? People already lived in squalor in the slums - take away any kind of stability and sustainability and you have yourself a Great Depression.

In other words - Shinra ruled the world but also sustained it, ignoring the whole lifestream thing. With its defeat would inevitably come difficult times for the people of the world; hundreds/thousands would have lost their jobs! So, one controversial discussion might be: was it right to attempt to completely destory Shinra, as was AVALANCHE's original plan? Although it's a private company, they own the public, so their destruction would be negative for the people. Or does righteousness and liberalism trump corporate greed every time?

I'm still reeling over the idea that Richard Branson might, one day, send in a 10,000-strong army to destroy those bastards at Sky.
 
I'd be behind Sir Richard if it came to that. Rupert Murdoch is the devil on Earth.

I've always assumed there were alternative energy sources as a back up, much like we have hydro-electric and things like that. There are areas that are well away from the nearest Mako reactor, so they must have had some sort of power source. There's Icy Town in the North that wasn't near one but they definitely had electricity, and other parts of the world in a similar situation like Cosmo Canyon. Obviously it was never originally intended to be a series of games itself like we've got now, so I would assume that had they had that plan in the first place then a bit more thought would have been put into establishing this new society.

Economically, ending ShinRa was probably an awful idea because who replaces the government? You never got the idea that anyone with AVALANCHE had any plans for what happens next, and no one really seems politically inclined to be able to take over the role and responsibility of ruling the world.
 
That's the thing - they aren't even a Government, they're a private company!

I'm currently playing and I'm up to Coral, and I've just remembered Scarlet came in and basically forced the village to stop mining coal and use Mako, so there might have been scope for them to go back to their old life.

I'll need to wait until I'm backto the Great Glacier but I thought that village used candlelight!
 
I assume they had some alternate source of energy before they were tapping the Lifestream for Mako energy, Coral had coal as a power source, and Wutia War started cause people didn't want Shinra and their Mako plant on their island. On top of that when Gongaga Mako reactor blew up, the citizens still somehow got power back without it.

What I find funny is that Shinra is basically the World Government, and they were starting out as a weapons company before they were an electric company...and had all the other stuff... My question really is what happen to any other governments in the world? The only other one we hear about is Wutia and I guess Midgar has a Mayor and did have names for all the sectors... But what about any other forum of governments around? was Shinra that powerful from the start? was everyone just small city-states and such before Shinra took everything over? These are the more interesting questions.
 
The accessory shop owner in Gongaga just told me "we voted to outlaw the use of Mako energy and live with nature ever since the explosion." There is no electricity or power; just flames for light. The fact that they vote suggests some kind of "mayor" might be present, or at least a figurehead of some kind, and that democracy is a thing...
 
Excellent analysis there.

It raises some serious issues. Sephiroth seems to occupy primary importance in the memories of most players, but Shinra itself is an immensely formidable threat to the planet (and ultimately through their scientific meddling they create all of the issues in the game too). But since it is also not as simple as that, it can also make us think about our own world. If in our will to do right for the world we were to turn against the methods through which we live more comfortably than before, would we be willing to cope in a world which is more difficult to live in? Or, would it be? Perhaps we could reassess what the advantages and disadvantages really are.

The towns in FFVII all seem to be Shinra influenced to a greater or lesser extent. There are, however, references to alternative power sources to Mako. Coal has been mentioned here, and I think that in Advent Children (near the beginning of the movie) Barrett announces that he is looking for more coal to use for fuel. Not that coal would be any more sustainable, nor eco-friendly.

There are some electric lights at Icicle Inn, and there are computers formerly belonging to Professor Gast there. I’d imagine that Shinra had devised a sort of transportable generator which could cover a smaller area. Either that, or the Mako energy electrics could travel a long distance.

Arnold said:
I assume they had some alternate source of energy before they were tapping the Lifestream for Mako energy, Coral had coal as a power source, and Wutia War started cause people didn't want Shinra and their Mako plant on their island. On top of that when Gongaga Mako reactor blew up, the citizens still somehow got power back without it.

What I find funny is that Shinra is basically the World Government, and they were starting out as a weapons company before they were an electric company...and had all the other stuff... My question really is what happen to any other governments in the world? The only other one we hear about is Wutia and I guess Midgar has a Mayor and did have names for all the sectors... But what about any other forum of governments around? was Shinra that powerful from the start? was everyone just small city-states and such before Shinra took everything over? These are the more interesting questions.
Click to expand...

I find this fascinating too. My impression is that there were previously various local governments. To an extent these may have continued, but underneath Shinra.

Before Shinra became powerful Midgar had been a collection of small villages / hamlets, etc, I believe. As Midgar expanded it engulfed them, and then the ‘big pizza’ was built and cut them off from direct sunlight. If we think about the Sector 5 Slums and its ruined church and civic buildings, we can start to piece together an image of what the original settlement had once been like. The building we refer to as Aerith’s house may have been attached to a farm originally. Urbanisation and its dark sides are one of the key messages of the game, I think.

For other places there are hints as to what they could have been like. Junon I think is a similar story to Midgar. The part of Junon which you enter before taking the elevator seems to be the old town (once a fishing village), and Midgar did their own thing beyond that (and probably engulfed and demolished older buildings in the process).

Nibelheim must have had some sort of local lord, or a Lord of the Manor at least originally residing at Nibelheim Manor. It’s referred to as Shinra Manor / Mansion in the game, but that is only because the Shinra company started to use it for their research. The building was originally much older, and I think it had been abandoned already prior to Shinra interfering, but I’m not sure if we are given any details about it. It is fairly old enough to be haunted anyway. I’m assuming that Nibelheim had some sort of local government which carried on until Shinra ruined the town.

Coral Town seemed to have their own thing going on too. Cosmo Canyon has, it seems, had an unbroken local tradition. Yet even the inhabitants of Cosmo Canyon have been under stress from external threats. They are obviously concerned about Shinra’s effects on the planet, but before that Red XIII / Nanaki’s race had already become endangered, so something had already been happening there. Perhaps the wars with the Gi Tribe (what is even revealed about these weird things, other than that they resemble Native Americans and have somehow become undead?!) are to blame for more than just Nanaki’s father’s death. Perhaps the Gi Tribe had moved towards Cosmo Canyon because they had been displaced elsewhere by Shinra, or other urbanisation in the area (at Gongaga perhaps).

So it is very interesting. When you think more about these towns they do reveal little glimpses into how urbanisation and the spread of Shinra’s influence has completely altered the lives of local communities. And yet Wutai (aka – Japan!) clings on to its culture, and did not allow these external influences to penetrate them without a fight. I think a point is to be made there too.
 
I always looked at Shinra as a government even if they are not known. They have their own form of military, they do much more than what a company normally does. Although i understand that it is known as a private company, it just doesn't appear that way when the majority about them is public. Sure they have their secrets, but any company can have their own secrets....

Personally, this is one of the things that ff7 bothered me the most. how much they avoid calling it "a government". I will say that ShinRa does govern the majority of the world, not all of it. and there seems to be no other country or other force...
 
To be fair, it's an incredibly small world. 90% of the population probably live in Midgar. Pretty easy to control the remaining 10%!
 
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