Though also, I think Kefka's exponential power growth could embody a key theme of FF6: evil prospers when people do nothing to stop it. If we had stopped Kefka in our of our earlier encounters instead of letting him get away, or if Leo had reined Kefka in, Doma wouldn't have been poisoned, and the Espers wouldn't be magicite. And the same can be said for the Empire as a whole. If someone had taken a stand against them early on, when they were still a fledgling empire still trying to find a way to harness the Espers' power, maybe none of this would have happened. But even as the Empire expanded, places like Narshe and Jidoor still tried to be neutral. And when we tried to give the Empire a second chance in the wake of the Espers, we made a fatal mistake.
That could have be interesting, but I think it falls apart because the game doesn't let you stop him. You go to the battle screen with Kefka… what, 3 times? 4? And every time he just cheats and fucks off. It feels like some kind of bizarre accident, like the writers are saying "Oops! No, you can't fight Kefka yet, we still need him, we'll just take him back thanks."
Moreover, there's no sign given that the Empire could have been stopped early on. The strongest powers of the setting - Vector, Figaro, and Doma - are all on different landmasses, and as far as we see the Empire developed their magitek and proceeded to steamroll everyone nearby, becoming a militarized deathball that moved on to forcing a capitulation from Figaro and slamming itself against the walls of Doma.
I think the most important lesson to take from Kefka's antics is something along the lines of 'militarism will always rip the mask off.'
Kefka is one of three great generals of the Empire, the others being Celes and Leo. Celes, the most moral of the three, deserted when she found out that the Empire planned to make a massacre of Doma. Leo stayed in his position and made an attempt to head it off, but was easily manipulated by his staunch loyalty, even at the very end when he snapped and attacked Kefka outright, he's still made to hesitate by the image of the Emperor.
Using Omi's assessment of the Empire's obsession with martial strength and power, isn't it interesting that Doma, specifically, was the breaking point? Celes and Leo were seemingly proud to serve the Empire back when they thought they were at the head of a mighty Klingon army that would Most Honorably Meet The Enemy In The Field And Do Glorious Battle. But then one day fellow general Kefka dumps a bunch of chemicals in the river and does a fortnite dance over the corpses of Doma's population and hang on, wait, this isn't cool anymore. Of course, we players know very well that things hadn't been 'cool' for a long time - ever, really. The Empire's expansion was fueled off the back of horrific human and esper experiments taking place right in the capital of Vector. A systematic and methodical series of crimes perpetuated not only under the eye of a complicit Emperor Gestahl, but as we learn in the flashback, was
started by him to begin with. Kefka is a big, wooping, clown-faced reminder that fascism (or militarism if you prefer) doesn't stay nice and clean and honorable - it messes with your head right from the beginning, literally so in Kefka's case, and while the Empire at first concealed its crimes in the belly of Vector's great ziggurat, it was inevitable that someone like Kefka would eventually blow the lid off and start doing warcrimes whenever he felt like it.
Aside, it's interesting how the three generals of the Empire vaguely line up with the old Freudian ideas of the Id, Ego, and Superego, and how it shapes their role in the story.
-Celes directly repudiates the plan for Doma and attempts to desert. Her conscience, her
morality won't let her be part of such a system anymore. We meet Celes with her having been captured, scheduled for execution - the Empire can't abide a voice of dissent and a traitor to the cause.
-Leo repudiates the plan for Doma as well, but unlike Celes he stays in his position. Practically the definition of the stubborn old warhorse, Leo makes the choice to cling to his identity as a respected warrior and leader of men, stubbornly staying in place and attempting to force the Empire to shape itself around him. He - spectacularly - fails.
-And then there's Kefka, the Always Chaotic Evil chucklefuck running around setting things on fire, gassing cities and notably having the most direct hand in the Empire's secret crimes, having control of Terra and threatening Cid to keep working under penalty of death. Probably very painful death.
Inarguably Kefka is the one closest to the Emperor - nobody's fooled by the pantomime of putting him in jail after Vector gets rocked. Because Kefka is the giggling, cackling id of the Empire, having fun lashing out and inflicting harm wheresoever he chooses.
FF6's aesop with the Empire, I think, is "you can't build a society that worships strength and expect people to be
sane about it."
Also, huh, only just noticed how relevant your username is here
woopwoopwoopwoopwoopwoop
), right? So the game making it a bigger deal makes some sense, I suppose. Also maybe the developers putting in more effort as all the other sacrificial corpses we left behind in prior games were literally left behind where they fell, only Galuf (sort of) getting a "monument" at the Guardian Tree which was during the game's epilogue.
