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iComing of Age

 

As the second youngest character, Vivi embarks on a journey of self-discovery that is also inevitably the transitional period of his unique coming of age story. As part of an artificial race whose mental and emotional growth are restricted for a varying period of time, Vivi's coming of age comes about much faster and under much more uncommon circumstances than the typical coming of age story.

Particularities

Before delineating his coming of age, I'll go over why his is such a particular case. Bear with me — I know a lot of this is obvious stuff, but it's good to have it in the forefront of your mind before reading on.

Firstly is Vivi's immaterial age: we're given his actual age of nine, but we aren't told whether or not this is a guesstimated age based on his physical appearance, social mannerisms and maturity, or if this is the actual number of years he's been alive, or even if this is the number of years he spent with Quan (in other words, the number of years he's been aware).

Secondly, Vivi's not human. Humanoid, with human-like thoughts, fears, emotions, but not human. We're judging based on human standards, which, given the very different circumstances of black mage life — the initial period of complete lack of awareness to the emergence from unawareness — could be a little faulty to apply.

Lastly, the story and story environment are pure fantasy: much of what happens and where it happens is completely fictional and not relatable. We're treading on uneven ground, here. That said, fantasy can be metaphorical to aspects of reality, and I'll try to draw connections wherever possible.

Coming of Age

Although a character's coming of age tends to be a complicated, complex, drawn-out process, it can be broken down into a few distinct points that have the most profound effect in shaping the process. Such is the case for Vivi.

• Making friends Alone, lost and a wee bit confused, Vivi finds himself wandering the streets of Alexandria on his way to see Tantalus' play. There, he meets Puck, who becomes his first friend and leads him on a mini-adventure that results in him gaining a large number of friends. The importance of this is not only the relationships that develop between Vivi and the others, but the opportunity Vivi is given to develop an important social skill: interdependency. Vivi is a bit of a loner and vastly independent, but when he discovers friends, he swings around to the other side of things and becomes dependent, particularly on Zidane. However, as he journeys along his coming of age story, Vivi becomes increasingly interdependent: he finds a good place between being independent and dependant by appreciating his friends but relying on himself to make decisions.

• Finding an Identity At the start of his story, Vivi doesn't know who or what he is. He sets out on a journey of self-discovery, afraid but yearning to discover the truth. For Vivi, learning the circumstances of his existence is a terrifying ordeal and a horrific truth to accept: he wasn't born, he was made; he isn't human, he's a weapon of mass destruction; he isn't supposed to have a conscience, he's supposed to be a puppet. Vivi struggles with the knowledge of his existence, his purpose and his very being, but ultimately accepts his situation, unlike another similar to him. He identifies himself as a black mage, but works to change what exactly a black mage is and eliminate the negative connotations associated with being a black mage.

• Personality The most obvious and dramatic change concerns Vivi's personality. At first shy, painfully uncertain and more than a little bit afraid — of everything — Vivi becomes almost completely unrecognisable, in terms of his personality, by the end of his story. Where he was shy before, Vivi becomes outgoing. His uncertainty is all but diminished as he travels and discovers truths about life and his world. He comes to believe in himself. He faces fear head-on. He's still the quirky little black mage we know and love — he's just become stronger.

Comparing the Vivi who was shy and alone, walking the streets of Alexandria with his unfortunately fake play ticket, to the Vivi who faced off against his cruel maker with nothing but courage, it's obvious he's made a huge leap forward as an individual. Both the player in the real world and the characters in the game world — most notably Eiko — see that Vivi's grown. We may never know what happened to him after the events of Final Fantasy IX, but we've seen him make the coming of age transition from adolescent to adult, and can applaud him for succeeding admirably.

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