Final Fantasy VIII and the Katana Killer

[Gallego13]

I just remembered an astonishing fact from quite a time ago:

In april 2000, José Rabadán, a teenager from Murcia (Spain) killed both of his parents and his sister with a katana. The media didn't wait too much to rush into conclussions and accused Final Fantasy VIII of inducing José to do it, as, like a magazine said "He was just imitating his hero Squall" who in a moment of the story he thinks he has to kill

FFVIII Spoiler

Rinoa, a really close person to him

and stated that was an irrefutable proof of the influence of FFVIII because "he was addicted to the game".

What they didn't know, however, is that José Rabadán hadn't even finished the game, nor got to the part where that event happens, proving wrong said article. The killer was arrested and spent eight years in jail. He is since then known by the nickname of "El asesino de la Katana" (The Katana Killer).

Source (in Spanish): http://provceo.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/...ideojuego/

As a personal valoration, I think this shows how much the media biases the news and tries to associate videogames with violence, almost without questioning if the killers themselves have any kind of fault.

PS: I'll wait again for the valoration of the admins before submitting, because this one has a lot to be told about and could be improved.

[Psychospacecow]

There should be a whole section just dedicated to stuff like this, a good compiled list of all these media stunts.

[Dazz]

I think that's an interesting story, but my concern is that it does contain spoilers for later portions of Final Fantasy VIII... If you can use the spoiler tag around anything that gives away vital storyline portions to the game, that'd be great. You already know how to use it, so that's good! :)

[Spherix*]

I've tried cleaning this one up a bit, but my Spanish is pretty iffy -- no better than Google's translator. I did find an archived copy of an article from a Spanish newspaper about it, however. There appears to be some relevant information there, something about him having his hair styled like Squall, and attempting to imitate him in other ways. So while he was likely influenced by the game, that alone is not reason to believe it was the reason he murdered his family, though the article appears to try to draw a connection between anti-authoritarianism and parricide.

[Gallego13]

I've tried cleaning this one up a bit, but my Spanish is pretty iffy -- no better than Google's translator. I did find an archived copy of an article from a Spanish newspaper about it, however. There appears to be some relevant information there, something about him having his hair styled like Squall, and attempting to imitate him in other ways. So while he was likely influenced by the game, that alone is not reason to believe it was the reason he murdered his family, though the article appears to try to draw a connection between anti-authoritarianism and parricide.

I have read the article and it pretty much says what you have stated, the teenager had his hair styled like Squall's and acted like him, so they think there might be a connexion between fighting the authoritarianism and the murder of his parents.

It might be good to add that information to the trivia, since it helps to understand the point of view of those who blamed the game.