I’ve been boppin’ along to Final Fantasy 14’s disco raid theme for months without realizing it’s an anthem for existential burnout

You know that part in Barbie The Movie where the beloved bubbly doll played by Margot Robbie totally kills the dancefloor fun by asking, “Do you guys ever think about dying?” like it’s the most normal question to ask mid-bop?

That’s what Final Fantasy 14 has done to me with Dancing Green’s theme song, Ride the Rhythm, though I’m not sure who’s the Margot Robbie in this situation.

As is Square Enix tradition, official lyrics for FF14’s most recent raid themes are trickling in via its Community Blog months after their in-game debut. They do this every time, revealing what verses actually say long after I’ve committed misheard versions to memory, and I’m somehow consistently surprised. The unveiling always gives those boss battles new weight, but Dancing Green’s high-energy disco never allowed me much time to think about how sad he really is.

But do not let the fabulous shades and smooth moves fool you: Dancing Green is not having a good time, and I’m mildly alarmed I’ve spent the last several months cheerily twirling to his depression disco.

For a bit of context and some Dawntrail story spoilers, the Arcadion saga drops the Warrior of Light into a wrestling raid series structured like a classic anime tournament arc. It’s brilliant, flashy fun with some overly dramatic character archetypes I’d expect to find in real-life wrestling arenas, but like everything in FF14, they can’t just let me be blissfully unaware for long.

My opponents, sporting their brightly colored costumes and boisterous personalities, are all various shades of exhausted, sad, and brutally exploited by a system that slowly erodes their souls until death. Fighting in the Arcadion will eventually kill all of them—some know it and fight, some don’t but seem to sense it, others give in.

It’s a joke, right? Ride the Rhythm is groovy and fun! Dancing Green is just a bunny-frog cutie with a playful attitude and smooth moves. Like some folks on the r/FFXIV subreddit, I didn’t even realize the song had lyrics—I thought those were weird frog noises. But no, they do, and while some lines intend to inspire, others make me feel a little guilty for spamming dance emotes:

“No one said that life’d be easy
Workin’ hard from nine to five
Grindin’ daily, nightly, weekly
Turn to the left to the right
Ain’t no end in sight

City breakin’, people shakin’
Sellin’ low and buyin’ high
Brothers, mothers, lovers, lately
Everybody’s tired
Just tryin’ to stay alive”

This is not the first time I’ve jammed out to FF14’s most tragic anthems, either. Equilibrium is a hypotonic retelling of the Goddess Sophia’s pursuit to restore ‘balance’ to a grieving family through a desperate woman’s murder-suicide. Wayward Daughter is a melodic narrative chronicling the decades of abuse Stormblood villain Yotsuyu goe Brutus faced leading up to her transformation into the primal Tsukyomi.

But at least with those two, I knew I’d be swaying along and crying later. Now I just feel bad.

In all seriousness, it was a weirdly comforting realization. Dawntrail’s raid story by no means pretends everything is all groovy, but my ignorant 10-minute bliss in the face of Dancing Green’s plight seems thematically fitting given the state of, well, everything. It oscillates wildly between the moods ‘I’m too tired to keep going’ and ‘Screw it, let your hair down.’ So really, he’s just every 20 to 40-something-year-old I know.