Valkyrie Profile: a gameplay-driven yarn featuring loosely adapted Norse Mythology detailing the events of Ragnarok. We take the helm of Lenneth, middle sister of the Valkyries, as she searches Midgard for worthy souls and trains them for the coming battle in Jotunheim. But with the evil pedo wizards, the business end of Odin's dickery, the fire giants and watching people die and slaying vampires, what's Valkyrie Profile trying to say? What's the idea at the center of its unique take on a story older than the written word? That's the task for Thematics, a little experiment I'm running in which we'll be applying something approximating literary analysis to RPG plots and seeing if there's anything left.
If you got past that opening and didn't realize this was going to assume familiarity with the plot of Valkyrie Profile, and be full of spoilers, then shame on you.
Given Valkyrie Profile's plot structure, the episodic, decentralized nature in which most of the story is told, it's best to start with our heroine, Lenneth. Lenneth is a Goddess, and in this world it would seem that the Gods are otherworldly being separate from mortal concerns. While Lenneth certainly has a baseline knowledge of humans and how they behave (best seen in Llewelyn's recruitment sequence), it would appear she has no greater, intuitive sense of what it is to be human. This is a recurring element common to very nearly every scene throughout the first half of the game; Lenneth knows humans but does not understand them. And through this, we can see the first piece of the puzzle. Valkyrie Profile is asking "What is it to be human?"
Having the underlying question of the story pinned down, we can begin to expand our scope. Is the overall theme an exploratory one, an examination of the human condition through a divine lens? Well, no. There are other common elements throughout the story which instead suggest a definitive answer. Lenneth's quest is to recruit heroic souls, the most sterling and exemplary of mankind. And in a majority of cases, these recruits die through sacrifice. Not dying gloriously in battle, though certainly that happens a few times, but through their death trying to save those they love. Arngrim kills himself rather than slay the captain he respects. Lawfer dies freeing Roland from prison (we think). Belenus gives up his soul to revive his maid. Lucian is slain trying to protect his home from soldiers. Suo is killed honoring the memory if Shiho. Kashell, slain by a demon who has laid a terrible curse upon a town, asks Valkyrie to save the curative potion as his payment for joining the Einherjar.
But even among the other Einherjar, great love and devotion is a central element. The last day of Jelanda's life was dedicated to avenging her father. Upon becoming Einherjar, she immediately begged for Arngrim's salvation. Jun, in trying to find a cure for his sister's blindness, drove himself into a continual rage. Nanami, knowing she was unqualified for the priesthood, drove herself forward to honor the memory of her adopted sister (and exchanged her soul to allow her sister her own body). Badrach, an unrepentant thief and lowlife, is admitted to the Einherjar because he relates a story in which he did, indeed, show actual concern for another human life. Cecilia, the only significant non-antagonist supporting character, is particularly enlightening. Thoughout the story, she follows along with her closest friends, mourning their mounting losses. In the end, only she remains. She seeks out Gray, who she believes killed another of their friends (as it turns out he's innocent; she gave up her soul to revive him)... only to break down as she realizes he, too, is nothing but an empty suit of armor. It would seem she went not for vengeance, but because he was the only human connection she had left.
But these are all human characters, meant to be sympathetic! And yet, the theme continues. As Loki comments, "Odin died protecting Freya". Freya displays the only emotion she shows through the entire game weeping over his body. Lezard, for all his creepiness, is thoroughly human and flawed and is defined foremost by an obsessive love of Lenneth. The final villain of the game? A sadist seemingly incapable of empathy.
Most telling of all is one of Valkyrie Profile's most famous attributes, the two endings (the C ending is a gameplay balance device and is not worth considering). To get the first? Send humans off to die in a war. Ignore any dungeon which might cause a human connection. Never visit the only location you remember beyond your mission. And of course, this leads to an ending in which you fight a giant, are put to sleep, and watch the credits roll. In other words, by completely ignoring any connection to other people, you get a mindless ending. On the other hand, to get the A ending, you must meet as many people as possible. Hold on to them, getting to know them better. explore your last memory, and the childhood friend within it. Confront the stalker and his obsessive love. Attempt to retrieve your sister, suspended in the lair of the vampire lord. Oh yeah, and have a touching goodbye with the noblest warrior under your command.
After all this, I'm sure you've already worked out that I"m going to say the overriding message of Valkyrie Profile is "To be human is to love". When you really stop and look at the game, it's pretty well into the blunt metaphor trauma territory. What keeps it interesting, from a story perspective, is how readily they include the Gods as human in this sense. Valkyrie Profile at heart is a Goddess regaining her humanity and remembering the love she lost, even as she's lost it again. It's no accident that the iconic image of this series is Lenneth, in the field of weeping lilies, crying out to the heavens how much she hates her situation, her life, herself, inconsolable as the full weight of her losses crash into her at once. This leads into the final confrontations. As noted, we discover Freya mourning Odin, reinforcing the concept of Gods as human. We come at last to find Loki just gazing over the ruins of Asgard. Bored with the lack of challenge presented by Lenneth, he opts to destroy all of Midgard. And here the theme achieves a sort of crescendo. Lenneth's primary power as the Valkyrie was the ability to detect human suffering, enabling her to zero in on the deaths of those worthy of becoming Einherjar. Using this power throughout the game is the single greatest reason she was able to remove the block on her memories and heart. Loki's actions, the destruction of all Midgard, means every human has suddenly and horribly died. And so, Lenneth can, as she puts it, 'hear them'. Her awakened memories and innate powers as Valkyrie collide to form a sudden and complete global empathy... which in turn fires the Chekov's Gun that is the elven homunculus. Awakened by her supernatural sense of empathy, Lenneth awakens powers of creation, a nigh-omnipotent level of God quite unlike the gods of Asgard we've seen the entire game. Perfect empathy mercilessly slaughters nihilism and sociopathy, and in the bargain happens to recreate the world and revive love lost. Because the game wasn't clear enough in its message before.
It's also a beautiful and fun expression of a very simple theme, but you don't need me to tell you that part.
