I've been boppin' alongside to Closing Fantasy 14's disco raid theme for months with out realizing it's an anthem for existential burnout
You realize that half in Barbie The Film the place the beloved bubbly doll performed by Margot Robbie completely kills the dancefloor enjoyable by asking, “Do you guys ever take into consideration dying?” prefer it’s probably the most regular query to ask mid-bop?
That is what Closing Fantasy 14 has executed to me with Dancing Inexperienced’s theme music, Experience the Rhythm, although I am undecided who’s the Margot Robbie on this scenario.
As is Sq. Enix custom, official lyrics for FF14’s most up-to-date raid themes are trickling in by way of its Group Weblog months after their in-game debut. They do that each time, revealing what verses really say lengthy after I’ve dedicated misheard variations to reminiscence, and I am by some means constantly shocked. The revealing all the time offers these boss battles new weight, however Dancing Inexperienced’s high-energy disco by no means allowed me a lot time to consider how unhappy he actually is.
However don’t let the fabulous shades and easy strikes idiot you: Dancing Inexperienced will not be having a great time, and I am mildly alarmed I’ve spent the final a number of months cheerily twirling to his melancholy disco.
For a little bit of context and a few Dawntrail story spoilers, the Arcadion saga drops the Warrior of Gentle right into a wrestling raid collection structured like a basic anime match arc. It is good, flashy enjoyable with some overly dramatic character archetypes I might look forward to finding in real-life wrestling arenas, however like every little thing in FF14, they can not simply let me be blissfully unaware for lengthy.
My opponents, sporting their brightly coloured costumes and boisterous personalities, are all varied shades of exhausted, unhappy, and brutally exploited by a system that slowly erodes their souls till dying. Combating within the Arcadion will ultimately kill all of them—some realize it and combat, some do not however appear to sense it, others give in.
It is a joke, proper? Experience the Rhythm is groovy and enjoyable! Dancing Inexperienced is only a bunny-frog cutie with a playful perspective and easy strikes. Like some people on the r/FFXIV subreddit, I did not even understand the music had lyrics—I assumed these have been bizarre frog noises. However no, they do, and whereas some traces intend to encourage, others make me really feel somewhat responsible for spamming dance emotes:
“Nobody mentioned that life’d be simple
Workin’ onerous from 9 to 5
Grindin’ day by day, nightly, weekly
Flip to the left to the suitable
Ain’t no finish in sight
Metropolis breakin’, individuals shakin’
Sellin’ low and buyin’ excessive
Brothers, moms, lovers, recently
All people’s drained
Simply tryin’ to remain alive”
This isn’t the primary time I’ve jammed out to FF14’s most tragic anthems, both. Equilibrium is a hypotonic retelling of the Goddess Sophia’s pursuit to revive ‘steadiness’ to a grieving household via a determined lady’s murder-suicide. Wayward Daughter is a melodic narrative chronicling the many years of abuse Stormblood villain Yotsuyu goe Brutus confronted main as much as her transformation into the primal Tsukyomi.
However no less than with these two, I knew I might be swaying alongside and crying later. Now I simply really feel unhealthy.
In all seriousness, it was a weirdly comforting realization. Dawntrail’s raid story not at all pretends every little thing is all groovy, however my ignorant 10-minute bliss within the face of Dancing Inexperienced’s plight appears thematically becoming given the state of, effectively, every little thing. It oscillates wildly between the moods ‘I am too drained to maintain going’ and ‘Screw it, let your hair down.’ So actually, he is simply each 20 to 40-something-year-old I do know.