I remember when I first got my copy of *Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance* on the GBA. I had no idea that there was an ongoing clamor from people who were pissed that it wasn't the same as their beloved *Final Fantasy Tactics* - a game that I wouldn't end up playing for another few years. I just saw "Final Fantasy" emblazoned on the cover, and grabbed it at a Gamestop at the mall because I loved *FFIX* and Eid was around the corner. My mom didn't let me play the game until after we did the Eid prayer at the mosque, so I brought the whole box with me and put it in the car so I could play right after. It's probably the Game Boy Advance game I put the most amount of time into. *FFTA* is the reason I love games with Job/Class systems, and one of the first games I ever learned how to build-craft in. I made mages that could cast Black and White magic, and Ninja Gladiators that could duel-wield broadswords for massive damage. I say all this because I look back on the game fondly, despite fans not getting what they wanted. And whenever I try to get a little nostalgic and read about *Tactics Advance*, I get hit by some of the most annoying discourse one can see from a fandom, which is misunderstanding the point. "Marche was wrong" is one of the most irritating persistent misunderstandings in media to me personally, with the only thing beating it out being the Tidus Laugh. Marche was always right, and because I'm insane I'm going to write a lot of words to explain why. ## Who? What? Allow me to briefly recap the plot of *FFTA*. The game is about a boy named Marche and his friends, who get transported into a spin-off Final Fantasy world called Ivalice (not the same one as in *Final Fantasy XII*[^1]) thanks to a magical book found by one of Marche's friends, Mewt. Marche, the new kid at school, along with Mewt, Ritz, and Marche's brother Doned, all get transported into the book and have all of the problems in their lives fixed: Mewt gets to be the prince of Ivalice, with his previously deceased mother coming back to life, and his dad no longer being a deadbeat. Ritz, bullied for her natural white hair color, now has natural red hair instead. Doned, previously wheelchair-bound, is able to walk in Ivalice. And Marche isn't the new kid anymore. He can be anything he want. If you're reading this and going "this sounds like every boring-ass isekai I've seen in anime in the past decade," you'd be correct. *Almost*. Because there's a twist in this game from 2003 that is very interesting compared to those isekai, and that's that **Marche fucking hates Ivalice.** He doesn't want to be there, he wants to go back to what things were like before and meet his family again. The only way he can do this is by destroying all of the crystals in Ivalice, even if he has to fight his own friends, who stand in his way. The meme for so long has been that Marche destroys the dreams of his friends because he wants to get out of the dreamworld that is Ivalice. The people who say this are wrong, incapable of critical thinking in the media they consume, and probably *super* into the boring-ass isekai that you've seen in anime in the past decade. ## Marche Didn't Ask for This There's this idea that if you get into an isekai with videogame rules that you'll have the time of your life, at least according to most isekai media targeted at young men. It's effectively presented as a given, a power-fantasy for said young men to exert their influence on the world and get whatever they want - usually a squeaky sounding anime girl that totally falls in love with them. Marche does not care. He sees hot bunny women in Ivalice and he still wants out. He *did not ask* to be in Ivalice. He was dragged into this videogame world by force. None of his friends give a fuck about what he thinks or that he wants to go back, so why should he care about them in turn? Mewt gets to see his mother everyday, but now Marche can't see his. Does he matter less? There's this common joke that Marche commits genocide by destroying the crystals to go back to the real world. But the real world either disappears, or leads to some of its other humans turning into the monsters that Marche and his friends are forced to kill.[^2] No one but Marche cared about the real world. How were they so sure that the real world was fine? They weren't, because they were being selfish, which I'll get into in just a bit. If Marche wasn't the only "crazy guy" in Ivalice that knew they were living a lie and calling for help, I'd bet that Mewt, Doned, and Ritz would throw those people in jail along with Marche. Marche doing a genocide is also **UNTRUE!!!** It's like no one played the fucking game! It is confirmed that the whole thing is an illusion created by Mewt!! You cannot kill a thing that does not already exist. It's to the point that the map for the game only gets created as you progress through it, because the dream is literally being created as you play the game. ## Escapism & The Worst of Us "*Final Fantasy Tactics Advance* is about how indulging in escapism is bad" is an elementary school-level observation to make - at least I *thought* it was. But I guess I gotta break it down anyways. The stuff that Mewt and Ritz are stuck on is absolutely not healthy. Mewt refuses to accept his mother died and creates a facsimile of her in his dreamland. Ritz can't accept herself for what she is so she would rather live a lie - also her problem isn't that big of a deal and white hair is in, but it's fine, she's a child. Again, that's the point. I'll go one step further though, and say that Ivalice wasn't just a form of escapism, it legitimately brought the worst out of Mewt and Doned's personalities, and made them into shittier people. They should have been happy kids living their dreams, but that isn't even what happens. They become spoiled and violent instead, to the point of actively hurting their own friends. Having everything granted to them caused them to skip the development they needed as people to mature and grow. This is a thing that happens in real life when people always get what they want! The more I think back on *FFTA*, the more I resonate with it in the present day. Isolation and self-indulgence are at the core of the American experience now. People retreat further and further into their own worlds, because it's so easy to do when the internet can give you everything you want, let you be anyone you want. And in some ways, that's good! I love videogames, they're what inspire me creatively and let me relax after dealing with the responsibility of taking care of myself and others. But would I want to *live* in my favorite videogame, at the cost of my friends and family? Nope. Not even for the hot bunny girls. [^1]: Fun fact: the first ever appearance of Ivalice races like Viera, Bangaa, etc. would be in FFTA in 2003, a full *three* years before we all got a crush on Fran in FFXII! [^2]: I say "either/or" because it's not totally clear in the game. It seems to almost become a Silent Hill 3, "they look like monsters to you?" situation, but I assume they steered away from that because this is a game for children lol.