Final Fantasy 9’s final boss is notorious for pulling the series’ biggest switcheroo. After beating Kuja, the game’s main villain, you’re suddenly facing down a godlike being that’s never even been mentioned before. It comes completely out of left field, although the series does have precedent for last-minute boss changes, dating back to Final Fantasy 4’s Zeromus. It’s easy to see how it immediately feels jarring, but the battle against Necron is actually an ingenious thematic move that ties a bow on Final Fantasy 9’s whole message — one of the series’ boldest twists ever. For the majority of Final Fantasy 9, the party is pitted against a singular villain, a puppetmaster named Kuja, who’s pulling the strings of everything. But outside of being the foil against the hero, Zidane, Kuja is actually central to the game’s overall thematic message on identity and purpose. Late in the game, you learn that Kuja is a genome made by the villain Garland in order to sow chaos and war — all in the hopes of draining the lifeforce of the planet Gaia and feeding it into the ravaged planet of Terra. Kuja is less of a “main villain” and more of a perfect thematic foil for Zidane and the party. A yin and yang situation. | Square EnixBut Kuja was flawed, and because of that, Garland demoted him and created a second genome, Final Fantasy 9’s protagonist Zidane. Kuja is a tool of war and destruction, and his identity crisis is what kicks off all of the events of the narrative. He and Zidane are opposing forces, and Kuja’s existential crisis becomes more about vengeance and a twisted sense of justice — versus the path of acceptance that characters like Vivi go on. That information is vital to understanding the role that Necron plays in the final hours of the game. Where the main party’s narrative arcs represent hope in the face of an identity crisis, Kuja represents despair. At the end of the game, Kuja utterly and completely gives in to that despair, plunging into darkness so deep that he wants to bring the entire world with him. Kuja can’t be the final enemy because he doesn’t have the will to be; he doesn’t have what it takes to stand against the strength of belief that Zidane and the rest of the party have found. In that moment Kuja opens the way for Necron — a being that’s quite literally the embodiment of death. That’s exactly why Necron is a soulless being that completely lacks any personality — it’s an idea made manifest. Kuja is what happens when you give into despair, when you can’t accept the mortality of being human. | Square EnixIn the last moments of Final Fantasy 9, you aren’t facing a defined villain, but the very idea of existence. Necron represents nihilism, a wish for all things to end — an idea that the benefits of living don’t outlive the suffering. This boss is mortality made manifest, and in overcoming Necron, the main party is making a statement — facing mortality and deciding that life is worth living. Throughout the game, the main characters of Final Fantasy 9 face existential crises, war, genocide, despair, grief, and more. Necron is an encapsulation of the lessons everyone has learned across the entire narrative, the singular message of hope — that even in darkness, there’s something worth fighting for. In other Final Fantasy games the party is pitted against the ambitions of a grand villain, and that makes sense. But Final Fantasy 9’s entire message and theme is about something larger, and the exploration of what it means to exist and how life and death go hand in hand. Because of that, there’s no way the “final” confrontation could happen against a single person. That battle is what needs to tie up the entire game's thematic message, and Necron does it brilliantly. Necron is the sum of everything the party faces in Final Fantasy 9, and the will to live and find hope that persists through darkness. | Square EnixFighting a cold and uncaring force and overcoming it epitomizes finding purposes in life — the way humanity, society, and art persevere throughout everything. It’s hard to think of a more fitting way for Final Fantasy 9 to end than with the party overcoming their own mortality and finding happiness, through sheer force of will and spite for the world that’s tried to erase their right to exist. Everyone has the right to exist and find purpose.