SMNTY Classics: Fictional Women Around the World - Terra Branford

In this classic, we're taking it down nostalgia lane with the Super Nintendo hero Terra Branford from Final Fantasy 3/6, depending on your version. Part human, part ethereal creature, all pixelated glory, Terra's journey of self-discovery is one that still resonates.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie, and welcome to stuff I've never
told you production I heart you, and that's right. Today,
I am sadly alone. Samantha's got a lot of stuff
going on that came up kind of suddenly. We've got

(00:25):
a lot of travel coming up, so it's sort of hectic.
And I just got back from Dragon Con, which is
a big convention. I've talked about it a million times,
I know, so I'm a little tired of my voice
sounds a little rough. But I had a great time.
I had a great time. In an upcoming happy hour,
I'm going to be talking about some of my favorite

(00:45):
things that I saw there. But in the meantime, I
wanted to bring back this classic fictional woman around the
world I did for my birthday last year. I think
on a final Fantasy character named Tara, who was one
of my absolute favorite characters, and I saw someone dressed
as her at dragon Con. It was so cool. It

(01:10):
was a great costume. And then I think I saw
someone I wasn't entirely sure, but I think I saw
someone dressed as her. But like the pixelated version, Oh,
it was amazing. There were so many creative costumes. It
was so exciting, and I just love it. I love
when other people clearly resonate with the character that you
resonated with. And that costume I think I talk about

(01:33):
in here would be difficult to pull off. I always
wanted to do it, but it was the green hair
that I really got stuck on. But yes, we hope
that all of you are well and please enjoy this
classic episode. Hey, this is the Any and Samantha and

(01:54):
welcome to Stefan Never Told You production of iHeartRadio. And
today we are back with another sub sub sub sub
whatever segment of fictional women around the World. I haven't
found the alternate title like activists around the World, but

(02:16):
I'm still thinking about it. I'm still thinking about it.
And you know what, I'm very happy today because we
are taking it back to one of my very faves,
one of my very first favorite fictional characters, Tara Branford
of Final Fantasy three slash six. And yes, that is confusing.
I always when I was growing up, I always knew
it as three, so that's probably what I'm going to
call it, but I understand that it's more traditionally known

(02:40):
as six, so well, we're just gonna roll with him.
And once again, Samantha's going to be kind of supporting
me as I as I tried to explain this, but
always feel free to ask any questions. I have no
idea what this game is at all, Like I know
the name, but that's the end. And there could be
a lot of questions because the Final Fantasy series is
a bit daunting to explain, yes, and that's like the

(03:04):
understatement of the century perhaps, And a part of that
is because it is a series that was created in
Japan originally, and some things for sure got lost in translation,
like the whole is it three years it six thing,
or the fact that in the Japanese version of this game,
Tara's name is Tina, and apparently when they did test
in American markets everyone hated the name Tina. Kind of

(03:27):
similar thing with Aris slash Rath, like in the one
I grew up with, the character's name was mistranslated to
Aris as opposed to Erith. And this is a character
from Final Fantasy seven who is another favorite of mine
that we will definitely come back to. But okay, basically,
these games are generally role playing games that take place
in fantasy worlds, some more fantastical, some more technological slash futuristic,

(03:51):
some a mixture of both. They are not connected storyline
wise unless you're looking at Final Fantasy ten and ten
two or thirteen and thirteen two something like that. But
Final Fantasy III was one of my absolute favorites as
a kid. We had it on the Super Nintendo, which
meant we only have three safe slots. And even though
me and my siblings, I have two brothers, so there's

(04:12):
three of us. Seems like it should work. No, they
would erase my game all the time for their quote
special runs brothers. Also, this game does have a big
Star Wars connect, like there's characters named Biggs and which
there's an Emperor, things like that, so I loved that. Also,

(04:36):
Tara is the first playable character in Final Fantasy three
slash six and a necessary character for the first half
of the game. Some characters are optional, she is not,
and not only that, she is a required party member
for most of the game. When the game starts, she
is an eighteen year old magic user that has been
captured enslaved by the Gestralian Empire. Magic users are pretty

(04:57):
rare in this universe, and her powers are an enigma.
When you first start, you know her as question question Question,
Question of question Mark, a bunch of question marks, and
a later girl because they've stripped her of her name
and her identity. As the game opens, she and some
Imperial soldiers are in these like mechanized walkers hunting down

(05:19):
a mysterious esper, which are these powerful, magical mystical beings,
And when they find the esper, a strange reaction takes
place between it and Tara, knocking back the soldiers and
freeing Tara of the device he used to control her.
Once she is freed, she struggles with amnesia and experiencing
emotions to the point that she's afraid that she cannot
feel love. She is rescued by an anti imperial activist

(05:43):
who enlist a thief named Locke to get her to safety,
and from this point Tara embarks on a journey across
the continent which I would kind of describe this world
as maybe a more fantasy and land based version of
Star Wars. I know, I always compare everything to Star Wars.
It's just a good reference for me. Or you've got
your evil Empire, even complete with evil emperor betrayed by

(06:05):
his apprentice, You've got your rebellion. You've got your magic,
You're different worlds, your mysterious power crystals mostly extinct, magical race, rogue, smugglers, spies, traders, kings,
the whole thing. Also, like with most games, you can
give characters other names if you want. And I used
to use the name King Edgar. I would name his

(06:25):
character after my brother because there was the whole scene
or Kefka, who is this villainous clown essentially Darth Vader.
I guess was cursing him out, and I loved it.
So I would be like using my brother's name and
calling him like all these ansults. I would just laugh.
And he didn't know that. Yeah, he didn't know that
until I told him recently, And it was a nice

(06:48):
you know, you used to erase my game. It was
not the same, but a little one up, a little
one up on him. Okay, So back to Tara. Tara
is confused and lost without her memories or her emotions,
so she follows Lock to meet up with the returners,
who are this is the Underground Resistance movement. As they arrive,
they learned that the Emperor's second in command, an unhinged
gesture named Kefka, is about to launch an attack on

(07:12):
a city they just fled to claim the esper that
so affected Tara, so they rush back to try to
step Keeka, and Tara suddenly transforms into an ethereal being,
screams and flies away, and the scream is very haunting.
By the way, it's one of the I think only
two sounds she makes in the game, because this was
early game, and you can look it up on her

(07:32):
like fandom page and you can play it. And it
gave me goose bumps. It gave me goose bumps. Locke
and the crew pursue her and find her being healed
and her memory restored by another Esper, who reveals that
she is the hybrid daughter of an Esper warrior and
a human mother. Their hidden world was attacked and both
the parents perished. The Emperor killed Tara's mother and kidnet Tara.

(07:56):
He took her back to the Empire and experimented on
her her to create the magic armory weaponry called magic
Tech that allowed for their continued dominance of this world,
and Tara herself was used as a living biological weapon
to control her. Kefka placed a crown of enslavement on
her and ordered her to kill fifty soldiers in magic

(08:17):
tech armor. She completed the order in three minutes. With
her memories restored, she can now access her esper abilities
and I guess by the way, when Espers die, they
turn into these crystals that the Empire has when using
to power their technology. They call them Magicite. However, Tara

(08:41):
is hamstrung up by the memories of what the Empire
made her do and being made into a weapon again,
So she's a recurring theme throughout as she is constantly
questioning people's motivations. She's always wondering if they're just using
her for her magic. She helps the Returners locate the
hidden world of the Espers, but when least, they start
eventually attacking the Empire without thought, and this forces the

(09:04):
hand of the Emperor and he makes a deal with
the Returners and they partner to bring peace between the
Espers and humanity. But alas, it was all a big
scheme by the Emperor and Gefka, and they betrayed the
Alliance of course, killing their only aison generally oh I remember,
and several Espers. In their betrayal, they attack the Esper

(09:25):
world to get their hands on the source of their power.
An arcane object the Emperor intends to use to grant
him god like abilities. However, another betrayal, Kefka, kills him,
pushes the artifact out of alignment to destroy the world,
and of course gives himself godlike powers. This brings us
to Part two, now in the post apocalyptic world where

(09:48):
Tara is optional and I find this interesting because an
Empire spy named Celis, who's kind of like an endemy
of yours at some point but switch sides, is the
one trying to round up party members in part two,
and I love Zelus. I want to come back and
do an episode on her as well. She's got a
whole opera scene that I love. Anyway. Sellas finds a

(10:09):
weekend to Tara, no longer able to access her powers,
and is now the surrogate guardian for the children of
a town Keka burned for he burned it down for
defying him. Celis aids Tara in fighting a fire demon,
and if Tara does not accompany you, it will attack
again until she rejoins the party. Tara is able to
use her power, but cannot revert back into her human

(10:30):
form until she realizes that the children who are initially
afraid of her esper appearance, are still able to love
and hope even though the world is so dark at
this point, and that leads her to realize that so
is she. She can still love and she can still
hope after all of her fears around that, she entrusts
the children to the oldest of the group, who promised

(10:52):
to watch over them until she returns. The group goes
to fight Kefka, who has multiple chibes and monologues about
life not being worth living, and the group, including Tara,
provide many excellent counterpoints. They defeat Kefka, but in doing
so banished magic and Espers from the world. Tara is
informed she will disappear too unless she has learned how

(11:14):
to love. She begins to vanish, but is pulled back
at the last minute, saved by the love for her
friends and the children. Life returns to their world as
Tara goes back home the end. Despite this being an

(11:42):
ensemble game, she's the main protagonist. Some people will like
to disagree, but she is on the cover. She's in
the original logo, her theme is the main theme. She's
appeared in other games too, and I loved her costume.
I always wanted to do it at Dragon Con. So
she has like green hair, so I'd have to get
the green wig or dan my hair. I goes and

(12:02):
a pink jumpsuit. It's kind of hard to tell because
this was an early game, so the animation was a
little you know, clunky. They're little sprites. But I always
thought she looked so cool as an esper. She had
this like wild green hair. Usually she was naked, but
the hair covered everything. Anyway, I digress. Tara wasn't supposed

(12:25):
to necessarily be the protagonist, but I think that she is.
They wanted to showcase her arc from a somewhat passive
go with the flow character to actively choosing her destiny.
Hints why the second half starts without her, And there's
certainly a bigger conversation that we could have and have
had about the whole like giving up of being an

(12:45):
esper magical abilities to stay, which is a storyline we
see a lot with women, but like the whole world
got rid of all of their magic. Anyway, as a character,
Tara is fairly versatile in both magic and combat. She's
able to use things like swords and daggers. There is
a whole classification of things called female exclusive equipment that

(13:09):
I want to return to someday and do a whole
episode on. So these are like items that only women
characters can use, So in this game, it's like hairbands,
mystery veils, tiaras, the White dress, the Regal gown, the
Minerva bustier, and the Princess ring. So yeah, one day
there's also items women can't use, so that could be

(13:30):
a whole fun episode. Nonetheless, Terra was really powerful and
well balanced and I always wanted her in my party
and again she can transform into an esper with her
signature power trance or morph, which was pretty good. I
gotta say the character was originally conceived as a young man,
but that idea evolved, and when this game came out
in the nineteen nineties, a main woman character like that

(13:52):
just wasn't that common. And she is well loved. She
frequently pops up at the top of list and has
many essays written about her care and why it was important.
People have argued she helped pave the way for many
video game heroines after her, and that she had a
complex and moving story that was rare and powerful. Also
kind of I guess worth noting Tara's never coupled with

(14:15):
anyone romantically, but it was definitely implied that Locke and
King Edgar were interested. But yeah, this game was really
formative for me. I no joke, think about it all
the time. I use it when I write stories. It's
got a lot of really fun elements like a castle
that can bare itself, switching povs, a haunted trey, haunted

(14:38):
painting and opera, vicious octopus, a frightening clown fishing which
was surprisingly fun. Mostly, it was a really good story
with an awesome character like Tara and her path for
self discovery being at the helm of it. So I
was super excited to talk about her today and now
I so desperately want to play it again, and I

(14:58):
you know what, I just my I just might well
As always, listeners, if you have any suggestions for this segment,
please let us know. You can email us at Stephanida
mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You amid us on
Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at stuff
I've Never Told You. Thanks it's always to our super
producer Christina. Thank you Christina, and thanks to you for
listening Stuff I'll Never Told You. The projection of iHeartRadio.

(15:21):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can check out the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where you listen to
your favorite shows.