Talk:Kuja

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A long time ago, I heard on a forum that Kuja was a woman in the Japanese version of the game. They said that they changed her gender for the English version because of her little "obsession" with Princess Garnet (kind of like how Haruka and Michiru in Sailor Moon were lovers in the Japanese version and cousins in the English dub). Would you guys know if this is true or not? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RoseDincht (talk • contribs) 22:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Rumors about Kuja's gender popped up a lot back when the game first came out. They stemmed from the fact that Kuja looks SO girly, that his designation as a male was thought to have either been a huge translation mistake or a conscious effort by Square to keep the player from eventually beating up a women. The truth, though, is Kuja is all man (or super-powered artificially-created monkey-for-a-brother-havin' man), and has been since the beginning. Nall 04:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take your word for it, but it's pretty hard to believe. How many men have the stomach that Kuja has (and the curves to go along with it?). His body's chickish enough. Then again, some of the close-up shots of his face were masculine in a way... 69.47.126.6 00:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just thought it should be pointed: Kuja doesn't shatter the Crystal. Had he done this, all existance would have been undone. Necron wasn't released from within the Crystal. Necron was the Iifa Tree's core function, which can be read about here:

http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/psx/file/final_fantasy_ix_plot.txt

If one watches the animation in which Kuja blasts Zidane and the others with Ultima, it's actually plainly apparent that the Spell burns out well before its blast radius would have engulfed the Crystal. I'll edit this mistake out of the article. -- 7:16 PM January 28, 2006

Let me take a moment to explain why I tagged this. It's not a badly written article, and it thankfully avoids one of the major problems of video game-related articles and avoids providing sub-strategy guide material. It is, however, almost absurdly detailed for an encyclopedia. If I were unfamiliar with Kuja and came here looking to get a general overview of who he was, I'd have to wade through several sections of prose to pull out every relevant detail. This is the "minutiae" I'm objecting to: this level of detail is distracting, particularly when we should be seeking to provide a broad outline and general summary. Would anyone be willing to summarize the basic points here down to two or three paragraphs, maximum, and to move the current article to somewhere where this level of detail would be appropriate (like the FF Wiki)? – Seancdaug 09:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you think this is detailed, could easily redirect you to the Tidus, Sephiroth, or Cloud Strife entries. The fact of the matter is, many RPG characters have extremely complicated and/or convoluted plot elements. While a general overview of any of these characters would be enough for the casual looker, it does no justice to those who want a thorough explanation of the character and the role they play in their respective games. That said, Kuja's article is relatively simple compared to the others I linked to, which are long even WITHOUT considering that they made appearances in multiple titles. King Zeal 12:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, it only takes a good copyeditor to compress, tighten, remove redundancy, and any issues that have little relevence to the general concept of the subject. — Deckiller 20:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How exactly would such a person do that in relation to the four aforementioned articles? King Zeal 20:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tidus generally does not need much compression (except for maybe 1-2 paragraphs in the story section), since the rest of the detail is out of universe information. Sephiroth and Cloud need a lot of work, which can be done in a five paragraph format: backstory, disk one, disk two, disk three, ending. I think that's a fair distribution for this case, but it's very rough. In cases like this, it's easier to learn by example. — Deckiller 20:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think this would be worth mentioning in the respective "Talk" pages? King Zeal 20:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not yet, because the sephiroth and cloud summaries are so long that immediately reducing the summaries to five paragraphs each for the main game (and perhaps two paragraph each for AC) would be really stepping on a lot of toes. I think the first major step should be a 25 percent reduction. I can try and help with that, but I disliked FF7 for the most part, so my knowledge of the game's events is much more limited. — Deckiller 20:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So what would you suggest for Kuja's article, then? When I edited it, I took out any subjective information and anything that I felt was non-essential to the basic plot, but if it can be wittled further, I'll take suggestions. King Zeal 21:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend taking a look at the Squall Leonhart article, which is pretty good except for a lead that should be reduced by half. — Deckiller 21:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think this article's length is somewhat absurd, and I question its necessity at all. Kuja's an important character, sure, but look at his section on the character list page. It's long enough as is. Most of the information here is really redundant of the story info that could be on the main Final Fantasy IX page and that which could be included in his entry on the character list. I honestly question the necessity of Kuja even having his own article. He's a notable character, yes, but he doesn't have the notoriety of Seymour Guado or Sephiroth. Given that their respective games are the second and first best-selling Final Fantasy titles, it makes sense that they'd be villains with their own articles, but not even Ultimecia from VIII has an article for herself. Shuyin from Final Fantasy X-2 had his own article for a while, but it was agreed that he's just not got the notability to warrant that (and Final Fantasy X-2 is the fifth best-selling game in the series, just behind Final Fantasy IX by a comparatively small margin). Shuyin and Ultimecia simply don't need their own articles, nor does Kuja. Anything notable to be said about these three can really be said about them on the main title pages or on the character lists. Personally, I suggest the most detailed info here be moved away to another wiki and the character page itself be merged with List of Final Fantasy IX characters. Ryu Kaze 22:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's quite a very complicated notability criteria there, Ryu. Sephiroth and Cloud's articles are clearly in the same situation, yet they merit their own articles. While I disagree with having Kuja have his own article, it makes people think we're being POV. — Deckiller 02:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the benefit of those who may be following this discussion, I'll post my clarification from your talk page:

"Looking at the games in order of best sales, they'd be VII, X, VIII, IX, X-2, VI, etc. Obviously Sephiroth [or Cloud] merits his own article [for legacy and recognition value if nothing else], and Seymour probably makes sense as well, but out of the next titles, Kuja's got one while Ultimecia, Kefka and Shuyin don't. Given this and Kuja's already substantial section on the list of FFIX's characters, as well as the fact that describing IX's story comprehensively will require a pretty thorough explanation of him anyway (sales figures aside, he is the central conflict of the game, really; the same can't really be said of Seifer with VIII or Seymour in X; in order for them to get proper coverage, they'd have to get their own articles), it seems to me like him having his own article's kind of unnecessary. Any discussion of him is really a discussion of the game's story, and any discussion of the game's story is going to largely be a discussion of him, so I just think it will probably make for some somewhat unnecessary reiteration across the three articles (Final Fantasy IX, List of Final Fantasy IX characters and Kuja).

He's certainly a notable villain, though. I'm just saying that in light of the treatment of most of the other notable villains and given the already thorough treatment of Kuja's role, it seems somewhat unnecessary for him to have his own article."

By the way, I would say we're always POV in how we decide such matters. Deciding matters of inclusion is inherently going to be based on POV. However, that isn't a problem, as policy for neutral point of view only applies to how information's presented, not how it's selected. By necessity, selecting information for inclusion is a half-POV/half-NPOV matter, based on notability (POV) and verifiability (NPOV). Ryu Kaze 13:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One of the main differences between Kuja and some of the other villains that you've noted is that Kuja is one of the few Final Fantasy antagonists with whom the party has significant interaction and, thus, are privileged with substantial character development. The same cannot be said of Ultimecia or Shuyin, and can barely be said of Sephiroth--since the only time the REAL Sephiroth speaks in FFVII is in flashbacks and at the very end of the game. Kuja, Kefka, Seymour, and Seifer, on the other hand, are all met relatively early in the game, have constantly reoccurring roles in the actual plot, and interact considerably with the heroes.

The reason that this is important is such: Ultimecia, for example, only has a single line in the story and her past, motivation, and general point-of-view is left unexplored. Shuyin's story is explained by other characters in the absence of his actual presence. Therefore, the game only offers a single viewpoint of each of these characters; they're simply threats the heroes have to eliminate. A small article in a character page can take care of that, easily. On the other hand, it could prove beneficial to the article to explain the way the characters grew through the course of the story (providing references as needed, of course), rather than reserving that privilege strictly for PCs. King Zeal 15:22, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean "real" Sephiroth? Simply because he was speaking through pieces of Jenova doesn't make the consciousness interacting with the characters any less him. Anyway, I guess you may have a point otherwise: Kuja's interaction with the heroes is a bit more personal than most villains'. Ryu Kaze 16:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's primarily an in-universe rationale. Kuja's notability to the storyline of Final Fantasy IX shouldn't really be the question here. The question is his notability outside of the game. Quite honestly, our primary purpose is not to "explain the way the characters graw through the course of the story." That's generally a very poor signifier of encyclopedic notability. We're not out to write a literary criticism of the game, and if the sole focus of this article is to recapitulate that Kuja is a primary mover of the story of one particular game title, then that speaks very poorly of its notability. There should be some sort of extrinsic rationale as to why Kuja cannot be covered in existing articles, either regarding pop culture notability (Sephiroth and Cloud would qualify there), or significant appearances in other games. If anything, reiterating Kuja's importance to Final Fantasy IX only reinforces the idea that he should be covered primarily in the article on the game itself: if understanding Kuja is important to understanding the game, it's silly to disperse such vital information across multiple articles. – – Sean Daugherty (talk) 14:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with that idea. It essentially makes the existence of articles on Wikipedia into nothing but a popularity contest. Because Cloud and Sephiroth are "important" to popular culture, they deserve to have their article, but because Kuja is more obscure, he fails to meet that standard? If that's the case, then half of the superhero articles in existence, such as those for characters like Hulkling, Jessica Jones or Genis-Vell should be deleted because the general public knows nothing about them and/or, they've had little impact on "popular culture". I just don't see the reason why Kuja's article deserves deletion versus other thousands of fictional characters who, for some reason, "rate" high enough.

There are still two basic criteria at play here: does he have a pop-culture profile large enough that a significant number of researchers are likely to search for him specifically, and not Final Fantasy IX in general. It seems very unlikely: I can only see maybe Cloud and Sephiroth as having any significant public profile outside of gaming fans, and it's a weak argument even for them. Alternatively, does the character exist, in some capacity, as a fictional character outside of the game, such that discussing his other appearances in the Final Fantasy IX article would seem a digression from that point. For example, Squall Leonhart plays a fairly important role in the Kingdom Hearts series, an explanation of which is effectively outside of the scope of the Final Fantasy VIII article. Neither of these applies to Kuja: he's unique to Final Fantasy IX, and he's not widely recognized as independent of it. Any discussion of Kuja, again, is a discussion of Final Fantasy IX. Discussion of Final Fantasy IX belongs in the article about Final Fantasy IX, and it serves no one's interests to disperse that information across multiple articles.

It's not about what other articles have gotten away with. It's about Wikipedia guidelines for dealing with fictional entities. That these guidelines are not universally followed is self-evident, but not particularly relevant. We're not talking about Hulkling or Genis-Vell at the moment: we're talking about Kuja. You're very probably right that those characters shouldn't have articles, either, but I'm not qualified to enter into that discussion. Again, we need to take an extrinsic view: Kuja's does not have the impact or recognition of certain other characters. It's hardly biased or unfair to conclude, from that, that he does not warrant the level of coverage that those characters receive. Indeed, notability is one of the key criteria for determining what we should and should not cover. This kind of detail is better suited for a gaming wiki, which would have a different threshold for determining notability. – Sean Daugherty (talk) 16:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, all of this is specifically to prevent Wikipedia articles from being determined on the basis of a popularity contest. Notability is not the same thing as popularity: whether or not a character is "liked" is not the same thing as whether or not a character is notable. I would place good money on the idea that more people recognize, say, Sephiroth than Kuja. I'm really not even slightly interested if people like Sephiroth more than Kuja. The former is related to notability, the latter is related to popularity. There's a connection between the two (notable things are more likely to be popular than non-notable things), but they are not the same thing (syphillis is not particularly popular, but it's certainly notable) – Sean Daugherty (talk) 16:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, on the idea that including the whole of Kuja's article on the main page of the game's article: I find that much like trying to fit the entire article about real numbers into the algebra entry.King Zeal 16:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need to take a step back, here. We're not discussing mathematics: we're discussing a fictional character who has appeared in one fictional work experienced by no more than five to ten million people in the world, and probably of interest to only a fraction more than that. Yes, transplanting this entire article in its current state to the main Final Fantasy IX article (or, more appropriately, List of Final Fantasy IX characters) would be silly. But that's not what has been suggested: in its current state, this article is too lengthy and detailed for the purposes of a general interest encyclopedia. Our primary purpose should be to give researchers unfamiliar with the character a basic sense of who he is, and why he's important, intrinsically and extrinsically speaking. We don't need to go into a detailed biography of the character, and doing so is usually counterproductive. If I had only ever heard the name "Kuja" mentioned before, and I came here looking for more information, this kind of extreme detail is distracting, and for all practical purposes amounts to a low signal-to-noise ratio. We should provide a broad, general overview, and, if necessary, redirect curious researchers to a more specialized resource for further information. A serious mathematician wouldn't look for information on real numbers in an general interest encyclopedia, they'd consult a more detailed and appropriate resource. – Sean Daugherty (talk) 16:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was only using math as an analogy. I think we're overanalyzing a bit what someone visition Wikipedia may "look for" from the Kuja article. Someone who knows nothing the character probably won't get any answers from a simple "the main antagonist of the video game Final Fantasy IX", though I'm exagerrating a bit. The fact is, I'm well aware that the true nature of this argument is simply to determine how much of the article needs to be cropped. However, it distUrbs me that this would somehow automatically lead to deletion. My point isn't merely a "X character gets away with it, so he should too" argument. I don't see the necessity of taking away the article in order to accomplish that when there are examples of other characters who have managed to retain articles with equal or less cultural relevance and content than Kuja. King Zeal 17:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a deletion request. It's a request that the article be migrated to a more appropriate venue. And the point is that there are plenty of articles on Wikipedia which do not conform to Wikipedia guidelines and probably should be removed or relocated. Just because this has not happened in the case of all articles yet doesn't change that fact. If this were a borderline or ambiguous case, certainly, these kind of comparisions might be valid. But that really doesn't seem to apply here: going by Wikipedia guidelines on the notability of fictional concepts and for writing about fiction, this article is wholly inappropriate for Wikipedia in its current state. That's not a knock on the article itself, certainly. As I suggested above, I think the best course of action would be to transwiki it to Final Fantasy Wiki and provide an interwiki link from List of Final Fantasy IX characters to make it easier for interested researchers to find more detailed information. – Sean Daugherty (talk) 18:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sean's argument has convinced me to assume my former position. I think we should definitely do what he's suggested. While plenty of articles have gotten away with it, a clean up has to begin somewhere, and it's typically going to begin where those involved are qualified to deal with it. Ryu Kaze 14:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kuja should have his own article. Strip it down, by all means, but keep it as a separate article. He is the primary villian throughout most of the game. In addition, he differs from Ultemecia in that she only appears at the very end of FFVIII, and he appears periodically (look two paragraphs up, it explains it better). The article should probably be further reduced in size, and focus more on Kuja himself, but it should stay as a single article.S.Fawdrey 10:00, 13 August 2006 (GMT)

Ultimecia appears from the moment Edea first appears. Her consciousness was controlling Edea throughout all of Disc 1 and 2. Anyway, I still feel like we're reiterating Kuja's role a bit much, but I'm beginning to see some reasoning behind him having his own article. Ryu Kaze 16:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, my bad. I was refering to her actually interacting with the main characters in her own time period on Disc 4.

Ok, how about starting to minimize the article by now? Most of you agreed on minimizing it and keeping it as a seperate article, that's not a bad idea, the article really needs to be cropped. It's too long and is written in a non encyclopedic style. Mohamed Abdel Magee 2:13, 21 August 2006 (GMT)

Not sure if it's related in any way, but "kuja" in Croatian means "bitch" (or "whore" sometimes), used either in a non-profane way (female dog), or more commonly, in a much more profane manner; usually followed (or preceded) by another derogatory term. Examples: "kujo jebena": "you fucking whore"; "krepaj kujo": "die you whore"; "sestra ti je kuja": "your sister is a whore". I added this comment because I was more than amazed while innocently searching Wikipedia for some "special" words, finding this.