| abstract
| - The 7 Jailers of Sea are based on the 7 Virtues. Virtue is defined as moral excellence. Virtue can accordingly be characterized as having desirable character traits, traits which direct a person to act in accord with the best possible standard. In other words, Virtues improve us towards the idealized perfection of our being. In order to be virtuous, one must continuously have virtues as habits of their character. The idea of Virtues originate with the ancient Greeks and the idea was later picked up and made a part of Christian moral theology, probably during the Medieval era. There are 2 sets of virtue: the cardinal virtues (sometimes called the classical virtues) & the theological virtues. The former originate with the ancient Greeks and the latter originates in the Bible (New Testament), specifically 1 Corinthians 13, but became popular in Medieval Christianity. The cardinal virtues are: Prudence/Wisdom, Justice, Fortitude/Courage, Temperance. The theological virtues are: Faith, Hope, Charity/Love. Together, these seven virtues were called the Heavenly Virtues or simply the Seven Virtues. The pairing of these seven virtues appeared to have originated with 13th century Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas in his work "Summa Theologica". They became a popular element for depiction in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. According to ancient Greek philosophy, they viewed each Virtue as being the mean on a spectrum of some characteristic. As such, each Virtue would have 2 vices associated with it, lying at the extremes of that spectrum. Note that the Virtue was the mean, not necessarily the median between both vices. According to Medieval Christian thought, these virtues are said to improve one's love of God and Man. The cardinal virtues are dispositions of one's being which govern one's actions, restrain their passions and guide their conduct in accordance with reason. The theological virtues are said to give Christians the ability to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They are considered to give life to all the moral virtues (the cardinal and theological virtues). The Heavenly Virtues are generally limited to the Roman Catholic denomination of Christianity. It should be noted the Chinese, Muslim, and other cultures have different sets of virtues. The seven Heavenly Virtues do not align up with the Seven Deadly Sins. The seven Holy Virtues (or Contrary Virtues) do though, which are: Humility (counters Pride), Kindness (counters Envy), Patience (counters Wrath), Abstinence (counters Gluttony), Chastity (counters Lust), Liberality (counters Greed), Diligence (counters Sloth). Fortitude (Fortitudo) is one of the Virtues. It is a cardinal virtue which originated with the ancient Greeks and was adopted by Christianity, though Fortitude is the Christian Medieval rendering of it. The ancient Greeks called this virtue Courage. Fortitude is the strength of mind that allows one to endure and/or persevere. Courage (Andreia) gave the ability to overcome fear and face that which challenges us. To the Greeks, it involved feeling anger and outrage at the right things, at the right time, and in the right way, guided by reason. Courage was considered to be a self-anger directed at oneself for being afraid or intimidated by some thing. It is anger and contempt towards fear and trepidation. Courage was the mean between rashness and cowardice. They considered Courage to be the virtue of the passionate part of the soul (which was represented as a lion). To Medieval and Renaissance-era Christians, Fortitude was the Virtue which allowed one to be steadfast in the face of hardship and to be able to pursue good without faltering. Fortitude gave one the strength to face persecution, adversity, and any sort of fear. They believed Fortitude was accompanied by the gift of perseverance and that it challenged the vices of ambition, vainglory, deficiency, and impatience. In Medieval and Renaissance art, Fortitude is frequently depicted as a calm-expressioned woman holding a rod or mace of some kind and leaning against a stone pillar. In later depictions, Fortitude was shown as a woman in battle armor, holding a mace and heavy shield. She either has a helmet on her, or a helmet is featured somewhere in the picture. The later depictions were likely the inspiration for Square-Enix to select a Ghrah for the Jailer of Fortitude, which primarily takes the form of a humanoid PLD, a Job known for wearing heavy armor and bearing a shield. It is not clear what the proper context of the Jailers is. "Jailer of (Virtue)" can be taken two ways. First, it can imply they are the Jailer of (Virtue), imprisoning that Virtue (or more specifically, imprisoning one aspect of Absolute Virtue). This would mean they do not possess the Virtue, they jail it. Second, it can imply they are the Jailer of (Virtue), being a jailer possessing that virtue. This would mean they are a jailer which possesses the Virtue in question. In this case, they would not be jailing the Virtue in their name, they would be jailing the monster known as Absolute Virtue. The latter interpretation is more logical since each Jailer drops a weapon and a torque bearing their namesake Virtue. If they were to be jailing the Virtue in question, it would make more sense for them to drop weapons and torques not named after the virtue, like objects named after the 7 Vices or the 7 Sins. However, the former also makes sense because if the jailer is defeated, the virtue it was imprisoning is released. Absolute Virtue, interestingly, appears to drop 7 items named after synonyms for the deadly sins. It may drop these sins because upon defeating Absolute Virtue you theoretically destroy all the virtues, leaving the only thing left to gain to be sins. It is also possible that the sins are the "chains" placed on Absolute Virtue. * Sin of Indignation (wrath) * Sin of Insolence (pride) * Sin of Indulgence (greed) * Sin of Infatuation (lust) * Sin of Indolence (sloth) * Sin of Invidiousness (envy) * Sin of Intemperance (gluttony)
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