Final Fantasy I - Ending
Brandon g
The first thing that you have to know about the ending is that it takes place 2000 years before the rest of the game. That's right—you actually travel back in time 2000 years to fight the last boss. "But won't killing something in the past cause some sort of paradox?" you might be asking. Well, it only gets worse from there.
A Paradox of One Kind or Another
When you challenge Garland at the end of the game (after you demolished him in the beginning of the game), he gives you this speech:
"Remember me, Garland? Your puny lot thought it had defeated me. But, the Four FIENDS sent me back 2000 years into the past.
"From here I sent the Four FIENDS to the future. The FIENDS will send me back to here, and the Time-Loop will go on.
"After 2000 years, I will be forgotten, and the Time-Loop will close. I will live forever, and you shall meet doom!!"
Did you catch all that? I sure didn't.
It doesn't take a lot of thinking to realize that Garland has no idea what he's talking about. First of all, Garland is comically weak—it's a miracle that he managed to capture a princess in the beginning of the game at all, let alone take more than two hits from the Light Warriors. How on earth did he send the Four FIENDS forward in time 2000 years? And if he could do that, why didn't he just send himself right after them, so he could conquer the earth that he came from?
Second of all, Garland can't seem to make up his mind as to what's going on. Will the Time-Loop continue or close? Will Garland be forgotten or will he live forever? And more importantly, does it really matter if Garland dies in the past if the Light Warriors have already defeated the Four FIENDS in their present (after Garland was sent to the past, remember)? At that point, the Light Warriors should have just packed up, headed home, and celebrated with whatever they drank back then; but Garland's speech confused them so much that they'd've done pretty much anything he told them to.
Help! This Ending is Caught in a Time Loop!
After all that confusion, maybe the ending will help clear things up...
Well, that's nice. I don't really care what happens as long as this whole mess is over.
Wait a second...
Is that the Chaos we just defeated, in the past, or the abstract idea of chaos?
Didn't we cover this in the game's introduction?
Phew. Okay.
"The LIGHT WARRIORS are returning.... As they travel in time, the world returns to normal." I don't know that that really makes sense, but I'm so through with trying to make sense of this game. Besides, isn't there a princess waiting for me?
Wait—WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE??!
WHY IS GARLAND WAITING FOR ME?? ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU!!
Wait... Actually, I've been asking that question for a while, now.
Oh, hell no.
Mmm hmmm.
Hmmm.
Hmmmmmm.
This has got to be some sort of elaborate joke.
So before the Light Warriors went back in time, they were four valiant, world-renown warriors; after they get back, they're just these four guys. And, given that their story makes no sense even to the people who were there, they'd be lucky not to end up in an asylum somewhere. Sucks to be a Light Warrior.
Oh-ho! Sucks to be YOU!
