Type Gripe

Character Study #4:

Name: Gremio Game: Suikoden MBTI: ISFJ

So here is my favourite character, and to a lot of you who played the game when you were younger I’m sure he’s a fan favourite too. While there are other characters I think have incredible design and seem interesting (Fu Su Lu and Crowley come to mind) the problem is those characters don’t have enough about them in the game. Even if these characters had more info, I’d probably still prefer Gremio.

Gremio is a sweetheart. There’s no other way to put it. He can be a bit of a worried soul but in the end he is nothing more than a kind and caring soul.

When Gremio was young he lost his parents in war. He spent many years wandering but was eventually taken in by Teo McDohl. He worked under McDohl as a servant and soldier to repay Teo for his generosity.

Teo McDohl was a busy soldier and was constantly traveling. When Teo’s wife gave birth to a son but died during childbirth, Gremio was charged with nurturing and raising the boy while Teo was out fighting.

Teo could not have picked a better soul. Gremio was the greatest ‘mama bear’, Tir could ask for. Gremio cooked and cleaned and always made sure to keep Tir safe. When Tir was young he was kidnapped in an effort to use him as bait against Teo. Gremio went and saved Tir but gained the scar on his face. From that moment on he swore to protect his young master no matter what.

This became problematic, however, when Tir became an outlaw. Gremio was torn between trying to protect Tir and stay loyal to Teo. At every turn Gremio tried to convince Tir to leave the rebels alone and find Teo to ask for forgiveness. He never abandoned Tir though, and Gremio quickly realised that his loyalty had shifted from Teo to Tir; and that he would be willing to give his life in order to protect Tir.

Gremio is sometimes clouded by his fear, but it’s never fear for his own life. He worries about Tir, the boy he had raised who wasn’t even his own son. That’s not to say he is not an intelligent man either.

When their plan to fake their identities at the Fortress Kwaba is put at jeopardy when a high ranking official almost recognises Tir, Gremio’s quick thinking pulls them through. Gremio freaks out at Tir, accusing him of always causing trouble and threatening to cut his head off if the Imperials would prefer that. The Imperials​ become very awkward and kind of scared by this show of abuse and let the group through.

More than just intelligent though, he is a man who believes in hope. He is sympathetic and is quick to understand the suffering of the Liberation Army. He doesn’t want to join Odessa for Tir’s safety but is more than willing to help save the bandits they had wrongfully imprisoned.

Another time he shows his kindness is to Kirkis, the elf. When the elf village is destroyed and Kirkis believes everyone is dead, including his love Sylvia, he throws the ring he planned to give her away. He gives up hope. Gremio picks up the ring though, and helps console Kirkis. Sylvia turns out not to be dead and Gremio gives Kirkis back his ring.

Of course, his greatest show of heart is when he sacrifices himself so the others can live. In the prison Soniere, General Milich released Spores of Agony, flesh eating microorganisms which devour a person whole. Gremio locked himself within to prevent the spores from escaping and harming the others. Gremio died and gave Tir even more reason to fight against the vicious Empire.

Luckily you can bring him back by the end of the game! Yeah! And it’s lucky too because the lonesome path Tir takes after the war would be much less exciting without his mentor, guardian and friend by his side.

Gremio is an incredible character, and his death had a pretty big impact on me as a kid. With his overprotective nature and his constant worrying, Gremio often becomes the butt of a lot of jokes. You can pull his ear when he’s making soup, Viktor steals his wallet, the list goes on and on. So when I was young I saw him as comic relief and at times a nuisance.

The game is notorious for its fake choices where you’re forced a certain direction (“Not if it’s bitter.”) and one of those moments I distinctly remember is when Gremio forces to come with you when you are discovering a way to beat Milich Oppenheimer. As a kid I remember wanting to try all the new characters I was getting and I didn’t want to be forced to have a 4 of the 6 slots taken up by Tir, Flik, Viktor and then Gremio on top of it. But I really learned the lessen that you don’t know what you truly have until it’s gone. All of his nurturing, loving personality just disappeared and all that remained was his green cloak and his axe. I was devastated.

And that being said, learning that I could bring him back was one of my happiest moments. There are honestly too many parts where Gremio is awesome and I don’t want to just list them all off. So I didn’t even touch on his friendships with Pahn, Cleo and Viktor. As well as all the other fun interactions and comments he makes to other characters. It’s really better to see for yourself than to read it from me.

Overall Suikoden is an incredible game, and if you enjoy story driven RPGs and nice sprite styles then I definitely recommend playing the game.

Character Study #2:

Name: Viktor Game: Suikoden MBTI: ENFJ

For the next few characters I’m going to go down the list of my 3 favourite Suikoden characters. Now bear in mind that I’ve only played the first Suikoden, so while there may be incredible characters in the 2nd game I don’t know them. I have heard that the 2nd game is great, and I do plan to play it at some point but for now, I’m just going by the 1st game. So with that over with let’s get to our first character!

This is Viktor. He is a big man with a big heart. While no exact measurements are given to his exact size, Viktor is often described as a bear. He uses his strength in battle to decimate enemies with his sword but most of the time he tries to avoid conflict.

Viktor was a young man when he his grandmother got sick and he had to leave town to get her some medicine. Unknowingly this trip saved his life because when he returned home, he found his entire town had been killed by the vampire Neclord. He swore revenge against Neclord and went off to fight him. He lost miserably against Neclord and only barely managed to escape with his life. After that point, he made it his life’s goal to become strong enough to kill Neclord and avenge everyone Neclord had killed.

He set out to work as a mercenary and hone his skills. Eventually he met Odessa Silverberg and helped her form the Liberation Army, a group of rebels opposing the tyranny of Emperor Barbarossa. Viktor is an caring soul, and has the ability to see potential in people before they may even see it. This is why he joins Odessa, and why he becomes so interested in the Main Character, Tir McDohl, when they first meet.

Even though he is a powerhouse of a man, Viktor tends to use his wits over his strength. Within the first few moments of meeting Viktor, he proves himself as creative, sly and an amazing improviser. When Tir becomes a fugitive and is about to be caught by some Imperials, Viktor quickly intervenes and says that he’ll kick out the ruffian. Of course this serves two purposes for Viktor as not only does he save Tir but he also avoids paying what he owes the inn. After this he helps Tir escape from the capital by bribing the guards, which he does by stealing Gremio’s wallet.

On top of his creativity, and despite his dark past, Viktor tends to enjoy life and keeps himself relaxed in stressful situations by having a bit of fun

When the heroes go to rescue two bandits who were wrongfully imprisoned, Viktor helps make the job easier by causing a distraction. How does he do this? By setting the mayor’s house on fire. As well, when the heroes need to get past a border guard and the group decides to choose fake names. While the others begin by choosing reasonable names, Viktor decides to call himself Schtolteheim Reinbach III. Of course everyone else is slightly surprised by the name but he sticks with it none the less.

While he is very light hearted, he can take comments made about him very personally. He tends to be the one making the jokes and when the jokes become pointed at him he doesn’t handle it well. Despite that some characters would be happy being compared to a bear (Fu Su Lu comes to mind), Viktor gets very angry from these comments. He doesn’t like it when things don’t go his way but because he is an excellent improviser that rarely happens.

Viktor ends up getting the Star Dragon Sword, the only weapon which is capable of killing Neclord. He helps Tir defeat Neclord and gets his revenge. And at the end of the game, he and Flik stay back so Tir can escape the collapsing castle. He ends up MIA after that battle but just a little knowledge of Suikoden 2 shows he and Flik live on.

With the release of the trailer for Episode 8, I thought I’d share some thoughts about the sequel trilogy so far.

Now this might be an unpopular opinion but I’ll open this right away and say that I prefer the Prequels to Episode 7. Now it could be argued that I first saw the Prequels when I was young and I am just bitter about Disney owning Star Wars now and that I am going to just hate anything different. But I don’t believe this is true. I watched The Clone Wars series for the first time months before Episode 7 came out and I loved it. And on top of this while I did not enjoy Episode 7 very much, I thought Rogue One was one of the greatest Star Wars movies that has ever been released. I would go so far as to say it’s tied with A New Hope as my second favourite. (Empire obviously being the best.)

And don’t mistake it, as a movie by itself Episode 7 is way better than the prequels. Acting, shots, editing and dialogue were way better. When considered with the rest of the series, I think it just doesn’t fit in properly. That being said, I do believe all the movies are worth watching.

But why did I love Rogue One beyond belief but only felt an empty hole for The Force Awakens? Well here is my main reason:

SPOILER WARNINGS FOR EPISODES 1-7, THE CLONE WARS AND ROGUE ONE

It Builds On Instead of Taking Away:

In the prequels (and especially in the Clone Wars) you get a sense that the Jedi have become complacent. They are weak because it had been over a thousand years since the Sith disappeared into the shadows and they did not believe the Sith could ever return. Mace Windu dismisses Maul as a Sith when Qui-Gon suggests the possibility. And Obi-Wan and Yoda flat out refuse to believe that a member of the Sith is controlling the senate when Count Dooku flat out says so. If you get passed some of the poor dialogue choices and cringey romance, we see that the fall of the Republic and Anakin’s belief that the Jedi are corrupt actually comes together quite nice.

In the Clone Wars it just goes even further. We see Anakin discuss with Tarkin how the Jedi aren't​ willing to take the steps necessary to end the war and that the war only highlights their incompetence and failures as a group and so called ‘keepers of the peace.’ As well we get how much affected Anakin is when Ahsoka is abandoned by the Jedi and how willing they are to let her get executed for a crime she didn’t commit.

So why is all of that important? Because it gives us motivation and insight into characters we didn’t actually know that much about. We see how shamed Yoda is by his failure to prevent the atrocities that occur to the Jedi and we see how Obi-Wan feels he failed Anakin so completely. And most importantly we see the human that is behind Darth Vader, and we see how broken and twisted he’s become.

On top of this we see where being all ‘high and mighty’ got the Jedi. The pompous Jedi were destroyed because they didn’t believe anything could ever touch them. The characters we sympathise with are the Grey Jedi. Qui-Gon Jinn is caring, willing to use tricks, gamble, disobey the council and in the end he’s the only one who truly sees Anakin’s potential and actually believes that Maul could be a Sith. And to an extent Obi-Wan follows in his footsteps. We are led to understand that true power in the force should come from balance.

When Obi-Wan and Yoda train Luke, they teach him the Jedi ways but try to teach him to be more mindful. They don’t want him to make the mistakes they made. By Return of the Jedi, we see Luke use force choke, force manipulation, intimidation and is walking this fine line of good and evil. In the end he chooses good, but his good isn’t the 'good’ of the old republic. He has family and friends, he doesn’t believe in the cold blooded approach of the Republic era Jedi, his is much more of a Grey Path.

So we assume that he is going to be the best Jedi ever. That he learned to be one with the force and really walk that middle road of balance. He won’t make the same mistakes the Republic Era Jedi made….

……Except he does. According to Episode 7, he trains some people to use the force but instead of being the awesome Jedi we believed he was at the end of Episode 6, it turns out he’s just as bad as the Republic Jedi. Kylo Ren pulls an Anakin and kills all the other Jedi and turns evil.

And this is where the problem lies. Where the prequels gave us a universe that was designed to strengthen and give more meaning to the original trilogy, Episode 7 throws anything learned aside in order to ensure that the story continues.

Anything accomplished in Episode 6 means nothing from the start of Episode 7. The Empire is not defeated, the good guys are still a tiny rebellion. The only good government is conveniently destroyed so that it’s still the story of a small group of ragtag rebels fighting the big scary Empire. Sure, the empire would not be completely destroyed at the end Return of the Jedi. But their leader is gone, he had no real contingent, no heir. Most groups seemed to support that the Rebellion won. So why is the First Order more powerful than the original Empire? Why was there no one to try to wipe out the empire remnants in over 30 years? It felt like they wanted to have a story to reflect A New Hope so in order to do so they had to dismiss any progress at the end of the original trilogy. It makes it feel as if the original trilogy just shouldn't​ have happened because it turns out nothing was accomplished.

Say what you will about the old Expanded Universe bit at least the Thrawn Trilogy was only a few years after Endor, and even then Thrawn is only barely keeping together a shattered force. As well, the villain wasn’t even a force user. He didn’t compete with Vader like Kylo Ren, he was so different and yet just as intimidating a foe. If anything Thrawn only strengthened what Darth Vader was and contrasted with him in a lot of ways. But I digress, my love of Thrawn aside I’ll go back to Episode 7.

On top of Luke turning out to be the exact same as Yoda, we get the fact that Han and Leia aren’t even happy together after all this time. That’s not really a big deal and doesn’t actually take away from the story, it’s just that it’s another thing that was just destroyed for the sake of making Episode 7 more interesting. Nothing from Episode 6 is shown to have made any lasting effect on the universe.

We get to the biggest culprits now: the fact that everything had to be taken up a notch from the original trilogy.

The Death Star was a monumental thing that shook the universe and took the funds of an entire empire to build. It could blow up worlds and it seemed like an impossible task for the rebels to take it down. But that’s nothing​ now, who cares about the Death Star? It has to move to a world to blow it up. No, now we have the Star Killer Base. It can shoot across the universe and eats suns. The Death Star was the size of a small moon? So what? The Star Killer Base is a literal planet!

How did the first order afford this? Where did it come from? Why did they have to 'outdo’ the original trilogy just for the sake of having bigger and better? It makes anything that happened before seem silly because the empire is just bigger and badder, so why did the death of the emperor even matter? Why did blowing up the Death Star matter? It all ended up being pointless after a few years anyways.

And then there is Rey. Ugh. I’ll get to her in a second.

I may not be overly thrilled by Kylo Ren but there are some things I genuinely thought were great about his character. The fact that he wore that helmet to mimic Darth Vader, the fact that he obsesses over Vader are great. They show how important and long lasting the terror of Vader was and that after more than 30 years, Vader is the epitome of villains. On top of that, I love that he loses his temper in a more childlike fashion just smashing stuff at random instead of the cool hatred Vader has when he chokes those who fail him. As well the fact that his lightsaber is imperfect and shows that he is obviously somewhat self taught and not a real Sith or even fully trained Jedi. He shows a Dark Jedi that did not have a mentor like Darth Sidious and never completed his training like Anakin and I actually enjoyed that.

But then there’s Rey. I think she was the worst part of Episode 7. Out of everything they did, she is what ruined the movie for me. She feels more like a fanfiction character than someone that should actually exist in the movies. In A New Hope, Luke doesn’t use force powers, he doesn’t even really use a lightsaber despite him holding it on the poster. He proves his connection to the force by making a 1 in a million shot to blow up the Death Star. Anakin Skywalker, the most powerful Jedi in the universe, is able to Pod Race and is a pretty good pilot but he doesn’t use force powers until after years of training.

Rey does all of this in one movie. She’s just better than every character that’s been in a Star Wars movie for no reason other than to make her cool. She is an exceptional pilot, despite being relatively segregated from most of her home planet. When did she learn? How did she have the time? Who’s ship did she practice on?

She uses force pull more powerfully than Kylo Ren despite never having any training and Kylo Ren actually having training from Luke. She uses force manipulation despite only masters being shown to use this power (even Luke only uses it in Jedi after a few years of practice). How did she even know this was a power? Why was she able to use it so effectively? Why didn’t she have to move her hand like every other Jedi that uses it?

They make every other Jedi look like an idiot because she could figure everything out in a matter of days while it took others years. The Prequels show how powerful Luke is because he is learning to use the force at an older age in a matter of days. He can lift stones and jump around all because of Yoda’s training and his innate abilities. But even he has nothing on Rey because she just instantly knows how to use every force power the plot needs her to learn.

What’s wrong is that Episode 7 doesn’t follow the same rules that the other movies have established. It was like they wanted to have a bunch of nostalgia moments but didn’t care that putting them in made no sense or just made Rey feel way to overpowered.

This went a lot longer than I expected to go, so I’m going to talk about Rogue One (and why I fanboyed so hard the first time I watched it) in a second part.

Characters Study #1:

Name: Wiegraf Folles Game: Final Fantasy Tactics MBTI: INFJ

First we have one of my favourite video game characters of all time, from one of my favourite games of all time.

For those who don’t know this dashing fellow, he is Wiegraf Folles from Final Fantasy Tactics. He is a villain in the game and considered by many to be one of the hardest video game bosses of all time.

SIDE RANT: Now it’s not that his fight is actually that difficult, as it doesn’t take that long to train your characters up till you can beat him. The problem is that the game tricks you. Every fight up to this point has been relatively easy without much grinding needed, there were a few battles (like at Lionel Castle Gate) that may be difficult but you can grind if you lose and take it on with a stronger team. But for this fight there are three fights in a row and it asks if you want to save after every fight… which means you can’t go back and grind if you’re under-leveled. To top it all off, this is the first fight you have to do with only Ramza (the MC) and I didn’t bother to put much training into Ramza because I preferred the cool designs of other characters. So when I got this part my 10 year old self had no idea what to do because he could kill my character in 2 hits and took barely any damage. The game had tricked me into getting locked into a fight I could legitimately never win. I didn’t touch the game for a few weeks because I had to restart from the beginning. Sorry about that, just had to get my terrible tragedy of this battle off my chest. SIDE RANT OVER

Wiegraf Folles was commander of the Death Corps, a group of peasant soldiers who were sent on missions that nobles were unwilling to do themselves because the danger was too great. Even with this discrepancy Wiegraf did his job and led the Death Corps to many victories. When he returned home from war though, the nobility was broke and unable/unwilling to pay the soldiers. So all these soldiers were broke, starving and felt betrayed​ by the country they fought to defend.

So Wiegraf created the Corpse Brigade, a group of revolutionaries who wanted to shake the nobles from their comfort and force them to give the people what was owed to them. Unfortunately for Wiegraf, his revolution failed and the Corpse Brigade was destroyed and his sister Milleuda was killed by Ramza.

Without an army to help his cause, and wanting vengeance for the death of his sister, he joined the Church of Glabados to gain the power he needed to destroy the nobility and kill Ramza to avenge his sister. He gains power, immense power that allows him to wipe out an entire castle full of soldiers, but with this great power comes his corruption. He loses sight of what he once fought for and becomes a pawn of the Church. He is killed by Ramza, and there his story ends. A tragic story of a fallen hero.

In many ways he is a representation of Ramza and his struggle to do what is right in a world where corruption is the norm. I may go into more detail about this if I do a study on Ramza but I’ll point some things out here. Ramza and him both have a sister that they care deeply about, but Ramza is able to protect and save his sister. Both fight for what they believe is right, even if it goes against where their loyalty should lie (Wiegraf’s loyalty to the crown and Ramza’s loyalty to his family). The main difference between the two, besides one being noble and the other being a peasant, is that Ramza stays fighting against evil and corruption and does not betray his ideals. Wiegraf becomes so tired and so defeated that by the end he betrays his original idealistic beliefs in exchange for power; making him no better than the nobles he had been fighting against.

A few people that I have seen place him as an ENTJ. And I can see how someone could see him as that, but I think he is one of the best examples of an INFJ villain (of which there are very few). Because no classification is perfect it's​ possible that he can fall into either category but I’ll explain my reasoning for putting him as an INFJ. Note that most of his INFJ qualities are before he falls completely into darkness.

INFJs are often idealists that fight for their beliefs and try to make a difference. Wiegraf fights to make the world a better place, not because he hates nobles but because he legitimately cares for people and hates to see them suffer at the hands of those who would take advantage of them. He fights the nobles out of necessity but holds no grudge against them. He opposes both the capture of the Marquis d'Elmdore and of Tetra, a young girl.

He tries to destroy the nobility by cutting off resources, creating chaos and by attempting to remove figureheads within the nobility. He wants to change Ivalice as a country and not just fight for money or petty gains. He believes that by remaining strong, eventually others will take up the call and the nobility can be overthrown. He mentions that “A pebble may cause a small ripple, but over time that ripple may become a tidalwave.” (I paraphrased that)

He is able to relate to Ramza and talk to him on a very personal level, despite being enemies from the first time they meet. He can sympathise with Ramza, while understanding that one of them must die.

Inherently, INFJs tend to be sympathetic and understanding of multiple points of view. This makes it difficult for INFJs to be villains because often they are able to avoid conflict, or if there is conflict they tend to fight for those who are mistreated and fight for fairness. Some INFJ villains are villains because they are too idealistic and are clouded by their idealism but this kind of goes against their very pitying nature. What happens more often to INFJs is that they become broken.

INFJs are idealists but they like to see their plans have some sort of impact. If they have no support and are not seeing any progress in their efforts, they can quickly become isolated, cold and depressed. They lash out and they either give up on everything; they become a shell of their former self.

This is what happens to Wiegraf. Wiegraf is an idealist. He wants Ivalice to change and for the world to be fair for both peasants and nobles. He doesn’t care about money or personal gain and just wants to see his revolution through till the end. The people under him are much less idealistic.

These people had just finished fighting during the fifty years war. All most of them have known is conflict and poverty. They are tired, they are starving and they just want to survive. They care more about being fed than about fighting a revolution (and quite justified in feeling this way). Wiegraf is not supported in his goals and the Corpse Brigade quickly falls apart.

He joins the Church of Glabados as a last ditch effort to gain the support he needs. They want to destroy the nobility and he is willing to be their pawn to see this through. As well, joing the Church gives him the chance to take revenge on Ramza for his sister. He doesn’t care about the goals of the church but doesn’t see any way for him to complete his goals by himself.

His final transformation comes when he is nearly killed by Ramza. He failed his cause, and failed his sister. He lays there about to die and makes a pact with a Lucavi (FFTs version of demons). This is a literal change as he becomes one with the Lucavi, but also a symbol of his change in giving up everything he cared for.

When he next meets Ramza, all he cares about is destruction. This once heroic-like idealist falls to complete villain. Personally, I think it’s an incredible way to have an INFJ villain. Showing their decline as they slowly realise that there is no hope for their cause and their eventual betrayal of everything they believed.

His whole arch is pretty nicely conveyed in a quote of his: “What troubled sleep have you known to speak of my dreams? No matter how sweet, a dream left unrealised must fade into day.”