This post is in response to a youtube video titled The Symbolic Purpose of Ultimecia in FF8 by @ScribbleRetrospective. For reference, his video is found here but is not required reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK1DHlaQ4Ng&t=1834s. I think his interpretation of the Squall character is fundamentally flawed.
In storytelling, the hero often has an internal conflict. For Squall, it's abandonment issues resulting with self-isolation. During the flashback to the light house, we learn he was separated from his big sis and in his own words he says, "I didn't turn out very well." The exact dialogue that the game shows us is young Squall standing in the rain and saying something like "Big Sis, I'm doing my best without you." There's another moment where the other characters said he was particularly fond of Ellone with regards to his days as a child in the orphanage, so we can assume the separation might have hit hard. Abandonment issues mean someone who felt the loss of being abandoned and who spends their life afraid of going through that again and taking measures to ensure it doesn't happen again. In Squall's case, he values his independence and keeps everyone at a distance. I forget where precisely in the script of FF8, but Squall either says or thinks that he doesn't believe in relying on others. He's also described by school faculty as being a student who has difficulty expressing himself.
All this said, protagonists must also have a goal in the story. In the beginning of the story, Squall does not have a stated goal in the script. He's either satisfied with being a SeeD or he's an adolescent and he's not thinking about what to do with his life as it's probably overwhelming to think about. Squall's goal is therefore whatever SeeD's goal is as long as he doesn't express otherwise. By the halfway point of the story, Rinoa becomes comatose, and his new short-term goal becomes helping her. When he learns that she is now a sorceress and that she's in danger of being a victim of this or that government or by Sorceress Ultimicia, then his goal of pursuing SeeD's ultimate goal of slaying the (bad) sorceress simply becomes personal for him.
To resolve the internal conflict of abandonment, Squall must allow himself to be vulnerable and open up to people and let them in, and to risk abandonment again, specifically with Rinoa. This is difficult for him. The internal conflict of abandonment and the external conflict of defeating Ultimecia are now connected. The theme of the story is usually found in the internal conflict. Squall has to risk being vulnerable in order to find love. He is fighting Ultimecia to protect loved ones now. He's no longer a SeeD without a purpose. He's no longer following orders because it's his job. He's fighting for love. Ultimecia does not symbolically represent anything, she's just an existential threat.
That's it. Now for geekiness.
Some early moments in the script that stand out to me as defining who Squall is comes during the Dollet SeeD exam when Seifer issues an order to abandon their post and Squall is agreeable because he wants to put his training to the test. This is the closest thing we get to Squall expressing a value or belief in the early portion of the game. He also tells Seifer something like "I feel like I can take on anybody, even if they do fight dirty like you." We can also take this example of Squall expressing that he thinks poorly of people who don't fight fair. This hints at some nobility in the character, or that the character has a sense of fairness.
One moment that I think you got wrong is in the scene in Galbadia Garden where the characters are discussing Seifer's death. In Squall's internal monologue, he's reiterating the words that the other characters said of Seifer, he is not expressing his own views on Seifer. He's not taking issue with the literal meaning of what their words, he's taking issue with the fact that they're saying it. I can speculate why. As a character who values his independence, he probably also values his privacy or he doesn't want his reputation to be subject to popular opinion after he dies, and therefore he probably does not want people talking liberally about him after he dies. Or perhaps as a person with abandonment issues, he's sensitive to the idea that other people might have true thoughts that they conceal till you're not around. In other words, Squall does not want people talking shit about him when he's not around. This might be a pain point for him, hence the outburst.
You bring up Seifer as a foil, but I think it's a shame that you overlooked the symbolism of the white knight and the dark knight theme that the game has. Seifer is the white clad knight of Sorceress Edea and later Ultimecia. Squall is therefore black clad knight of Sorceress Rinoa. They have symbols of crosses (Seifer's vest) and lions (Squall's necklace), like knights. They both have swords and mirrored scars that they gave each other (they have marked each other). Here's a nice touch. In the cutscene, where they scar each other, Seifer cuts high to low, like Squall does in battle, and Squall cuts low to high like Seifer does in battle. A for effort there. The symbolism is also in the colors of their outfits where Squall wears a black exterior, but inside he's white, and Seifer is the reverse. Seifer has a white exterior, but on the inside he's dark. In visual storytelling, color is a way of communicating things to the audience. Star Wars and cowboy movies famously used this (white cowboy hats and black cowboy hats).
Another criticism I have with your video essay is the scene where Seifer becomes Edea's servant. Here's the scenario. Imagine you just murdered people and took a government leader hostage with a deadly weapon live on tv. You retreat, but you're cornered and have no way out. Then a sorceress offers you a get out of jail free card and a position of political and military power. What do you do? Obviously, you take the job, right? By coincidence, being the sorceress' knight happens to be Seifer's romantic dream, so he's obviously happy about it in spite of some initial hesitation. I mean, it does seem too good to be true, right? And what if it's a trick? You're a SeeD, and Galbadia is involved with the Sorceress, whom your dutybound to oppose. It's a dangerous situation. What does Edea say? The immature part of you wants to run and hide, but the adult in you wants to accept. What kind of job proposal sounds like this? A proposal from a good employer or a bad employer? If you can take anything away from this, it's that Edea was not offering Seifer the job, she was manipulating him into accepting the job. Now that he's committed to it, can he really quit? Do you think this sounds like an employer who will let you quit? He's stuck. If anything, Squall saves Seifer from his fate by defeating Ultimecia. By the end of the story, Seifer is just fishing with his friends and getting mad at the fish, an earned end for the guy who made all the wrong choices and was a dick the whole way.
At some point in your video you said Squall is genuinely mean and you say this is one way that he is like Seifer. I don't know what you mean by genuinely mean, but I assume you mean to say that he is mean to others, and he sincerely intends meanness and to cause others harm or discomfort. I don't think this. I think Squall is just blunt and refuses to be sensitive or take on emotional labor. I don't think he takes pleasure in it, and I don't think he wants to cause harm. This is different from Seifer. Seifer is shown as a bully. He takes pleasure in picking fights and throwing his weight around. Quistis comments that Seifer was always trying to get attention with this behavior, and that's why he focused on Squall because Squall never gave Seifer the attention he seeked. Quistis called Seifer troubled. People understood Seifer was kind of a dick. There's another scene someone tells Squall that students in the Garden admire him or they look up to him. This was around the time that he was given his position as commander. From other character's perspectives, Squall demonstrates competency and composure in most situations, and this is probably because he values being self-dependent. In the scenes where people tease Squall for tying to be nice, like when you have the option to cheer Selphie up because the stage was wrecked, those characters are just teasing him, and they clearly know they can get away with it.
