History Characters / FinalfantasyXII

-->'''Gerun:''' [[spoiler:'''VENAT IS A HERETIC!!''']]

We give you now the Stone and Task! Administer judgement: '''DESTROY THEM ALL!!'''\\

* PunyHumans: In sharp contrast to the rest of the Occuria, its motivation is that it does not believe that the Occuria (including itself) have the right to manipulate mortal affairs, and believes so precisely because the Occuria are above them. Indeed, it is respectful of its hume allies and graciously compliments Dr. Cid on his resourcefulness when he tries to shrug off his accomplishments as due solely to its teachings. Although the fact it is fine with millions dying to further its schemes to free them suggests there is some amount of 'expendable mortals' it is fine with.

A rebel Occuria who disagreed with the philosophy of its kin, and sought to break the control of the Occuria over Ivalice. To accomplish this it aligns with Cid and Vayne, revealing the secret to creating nethicite so it may throw off the Occuria's control.

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Larsa's hair, clothes, and voice fall just enough on the feminine side of androgynous that most players (in the West, at least) assume he's a woman when he's first encountered in the game. Trope does not apply in-universe, though; all the characters know he is male straight away. Meanwhile, most players only realize when the characters suddenly start referring to Larsa as "Vayne's brother" and go, "Wait, Larsa's a ''guy?''"

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Larsa's hair, clothes, and voice fall just enough on the feminine side of androgynous that most players (in the West, at least) assume he's a woman when he's first encountered in the game. Trope does not apply in-universe, though; all the characters know he is male straight away. Meanwhile, most players only realize when the characters suddenly start referring to Larsa as "Vayne's brother" and go, "Wait, Larsa's a ''guy''?"

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Larsa's hair, clothes, and voice fall just enough on the feminine side of androgynous that most players (in the West, at least) assume he's a woman when he's first encountered in the game. Trope does not apply in-universe, though; all the characters know he is male straight away. Meanwhile most players only realize when the characters suddenly start referring to Larsa as "Vayne's brother" and go, "Wait, Larsa's a ''guy''?"

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Larsa's hair, clothes, and voice fall just enough on the feminine side of androgynous that most players (in the West, at least) assume he's a woman when he's first encountered in the game. Trope does not apply in-universe, though. All the characters know he is male straight away, while most players only realize when the characters suddenly start referring to Larsa as "Vayne's brother" and go, "Wait, Larsa's a ''guy''?"

* DudeLooksLikeALady: Very much so, especially in the final FMV.

* TheChick: The sweet and loving member of the group.

* AxCrazy: He slaughters [[spoiler:an entire mountain of peaceful refugees]] for no reason other than he can.

* FinalBoss: And a SequentialBoss to boot.

* SerratedBladeOfPain: His "sword" is a jagged mess of spikes instead of a proper blade.

-->Voiced by Creator/AkioOhtsuka (Japanese) and Creator/MichaelERodgers (English)

* DeterminedWidow: She mourns for her lost love, and won't let anything stop her from avenging him.

* WeaponOfChoice: Knives to start, but all sequels and artwork give her a staff more becoming of her SquishyWizard status. Opera Omnia also gives her a knife rather than a staff.

* WeaponOfChoice: [[TheGunslinger Guns]]. Ironically the special animation he has with guns makes his firing speed a fraction of a second slower then other characters.

* WeaponOfChoice: A bow and arrow, but unlike other characters her promotional artwork shows her wielding many [[MultiMeleeMaster different weapons]] such as swords and guns. She also has a unique bow-firing animation making her fire a bit slower than other characters, even though the bow is her iconic weapon of choice.

* WeaponOfChoice: [[{{BFS}} Great Swords]] in all sequels and [[HeroesPreferSwords normal swords]] in ''XII''.

* WeaponOfChoice: [[HeroesPreferSwords Swords]] of various different styles, even when she uses [[ThrowDownTheBomblet bombs]] in the sequel she still has a sword in her artwork. She also likes her shield. Even her unarmed animation has her putting up her left hand like she's got one on there.

* WeaponOfChoice: A {{BFS}} called [[{{Foreshadowing}} Nightmare]].

* WeaponOfChoice: DualWielding [[CoolSword Cool Swords]], the Chirijiraden and the Ninja Knife.

* WeaponOfChoice: A standard issue [[CoolSword sword]] and [[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe shield]].

* WeaponOfChoice: [[DualWielding Dual wields]] a RoyalRapier called [[PublicDomainArtifact Joyeuse]] and a Swordbreaker.

* WeaponOfChoice: [[HeroesPreferSwords Swords]] are his starting weapon and preferred weapons in sequels and in the artwork. They ([[AllSwordsAreTheSame along with sabers and blades anyway]]) are the only weapons available to the Sky Pirate class in ''Tactics A2''. The UpdatedRerelease instead gives him a dagger to start with.

* PoisonousFriend: [[spoiler:Ashe doesn't realize the specter of Rasler that's been guiding her all game is a vision of Gerun, and that it is using his memory to manipulate the party.]]

* DarkSkinnedBlond: DependingOnTheArtist. Some incarnations look about like what you'd expect somebody from a desert nation to, others look suspiciously Nordic.

* DarkSkinnedBlond: Like many fellow Viera. Her white hair clashes with her dark skin (fur?), which further adds to her exotic appearance.

* ShesGotLegs: She's very tall, as with most Viera, and a lot of it is in the legs.

* VengefulWidow: One of the defining motivations Ashe has is the death of her husband and father and is haunted by the ghost of her husband at multiple points during the game. This drives her to vengeful extremes, dehumanizing the Empire and resistent to a peaceful resolution for her people.

* DecoyProtagonist: At the start of the game one expects him to become the hero but...

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice:He was stabbed by Basch[[spoiler:'s brother, Noah/Judge Gabranth]] after finding out King Raminas was dead. Unlike what one would expect, he survived that, but died later due to a combination of an extended interrogation and a wound complication.

* SophisticatedAsHell / WickedCultured: Speaks in poetic meter, uses highfalutin language and poetic abbreviations such as pow'r and hist'ry, and carries itself with all the dignity of an Elizabethan monarch, [[spoiler:until you piss it off, which makes its eyes burn with fury and unleashes a shockwave]].

Wield Dynast-King's power! [[spoiler:''Destroy Venat!'']]\\

* TheFaceless: He is the only Judge who never takes off his helmet, so we have no idea what he looks like underneath.

* StaffOfAuthority: Walks with an ornate cane.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* {{Expy}}: A [[LadyOfWar key figure]] for LaResistance and a [[RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething lady of royal bloodline trying to reclaim her power in order to fight a massive empire]]. While Ashe and Vaan are not siblings like Leia and Luke, she still brings the image of the other princess-turned-Resistance leader to mind.

The leader of the god-like Occuria. They guides Ashe, and by extension the party on their quest to topple the Empire by appearing to the Princess in visions. However, this is a case of SmallRoleBigImpact: Gerun is a critical figure in the game's plot in lots of spoiler-riffic ways.

* BigBadEnsemble: Has their own schemes opposing Venat and Vayne. [[spoiler:She spends 90% of the game slow-walking Ashe into becoming a genocidal tyrant under her thrall, the likes of which would have put Vayne to shame by miles. Additionally, it's their control over Ivalice via the Dalmascan kings that motivated Venat to rebel and bring Archadia to power in the first place, making her indirectly responsible for the conflict of the game.]]
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: [[spoiler:Annihilating every man, woman, and child in Archadia is completely justified to them if it rids them of Venat and scours manufactured nethicite from the world so the Occuria can keep humanity under their thumb.]]
* CrazyPrepared: It's strongly implied that Venat resorts to the roundabout tactics they do because Gerun has checks and contingencies on nearly all other options. [[spoiler:For example, when picking a [[TheChosenOne Chosen One]] to be the instrument of her wrath, Gerun actually begins grooming multiple people to their will with the same trick just in case one of them failed.]]

* GeneralRipper: [[spoiler:The whole "World War" thing Ivalice is heading towards? They doesn't mind, as long as the right people emerge victorious.]]
* GlamourFailure: [[spoiler:Their plan to turn Ashe into a new Dynast-King implodes completely when, in a moment of sheer panic, they start speaking directly through Rasler's ghost. The apparition had been otherwise silent up until that point, disguising the deception, and when it starts speaking with Gerun’s voice instead of Rasler’s, the jig is up completely.]]

* TheHypocrite: The writtings found in [[spoiler: the Pharos]] claim that [[spoiler: The Occuria's immortality made them]] much wiser and cold-headed than [[spoiler: the mortal races]], yet all it takes is Ashe [[spoiler: reminding Gerun that Venat is of her kind to get them enraged and order the young princess to not only destroy Venat]] but on top of that [[spoiler: [[DisproportionateRetribution commit genocide against the compatriots of Venat's Hume disciples]] despite the fact that most Archadians don't even ''know'' Venat ''exists'']].
* JerkassGods: They carries high the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' standard of higher beings that are pricks.
* LightIsNotGood: Gerun's physical form is silver compared with [[spoiler: the dark purple of Venat.]] However, they're far more prideful and ruder than [[spoiler:Venat]] could ever be.
* ManipulativeBastard: [[spoiler:They used Raithwal to establish Ocurrian rule over Ivalice and plans to use Ashe to preserve it. Their intent to get Ashe to destroy Archadia and Venat, progressing from subtle manipulation to to outright ordering her to do it.]]
* NonActionBigBad: Gerun and the Occuria possess great power but prefer to rely on manipluations and never actually attempts to directly intervene beyond that.

* OneShotCharacter: Appears as themself for less than five minutes, despite having a continuous role throughout the plot of the game.
* PoisonousFriend: [[spoiler:Ashe doesn't realize the specter of Rasler that's been guiding her all game is a vision of Gerun, and that they are using his memory to manipulate the party.]]

* ShapeShifterGuiltTrip: [[spoiler:The ghostly image of Rasler that keeps appearing to Ashe over the course of the game is Gerun playing off her grief and rage towards Archadia to get her to acquiesce to genocide. Vaan can also see Gerun's apparition, but to him it looks like his older brother Reks. This is because Gerun is running the same con on him at the same time, grooming Vaan to be their backup Dynast King if Ashe falters.]]
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Eclipses even Reddas in terms of the screen time:plot importance ratio. [[spoiler:The meeting with them and the revelations that follow cast a very revealing light on the true goals of Archadia and the villains you've been fighting.]]
* SophisticatedAsHell / WickedCultured: Speaks in poetic meter, uses highfalutin language and poetic abbreviations such as pow'r and hist'ry, and carries themself with all the dignity of an Elizabethan monarch, [[spoiler:until you piss them off, which makes their eyes burn with fury and unleashes a shockwave]].

* VillainousFriendship: With Vayne and Venat. Cid respects Vayne and talks to him as a friend, and his work with Venat is truly one of equal partners pursuing a goal together. [[spoiler:As Cid dies, he tells Venat he's enjoyed their work the last few years, and Venat replies the pleasure was hers.]]

A rebel Occuria who disagreed with the philosophy of its kin, and sought to break the control of the Occuria over Ivalice. To accomplish this they align with Cid and Vayne, revealing the secret to creating nethicite so they may throw off the Occuria's control.

* AffablyEvil: Is very polite and well mannered towards others, yet they are a major antagonist acting against the party regularly.

* AntiVillain: [[SlidingScaleOfAntiVillains Well Intentioned]]. They orchestrates a world war in the name of freeing humanity from the control of the gods.
* TheBadGuyWins: Their goal was to stop the Occuria's manipulation of Ivalice and its peoples, something that the heroes have no problems with, and in the end they succeed even though they and Vayne die at the heroes' hands in the FinalBoss fight.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Like the rest of the Occuria, Venat's motivations are inscrutable and are simply interpreted and assessed by others with incomplete data, like Ashe and Balthier. They side with Ivalice's mortal races and desires to free them from their brethren's thrall, giving Ivalice control over its own destiny and ending the cycle of war and death the Occuria has spun to keep "his'try's weave" straight. Yet to do so, they are willing to engage in atrocities on the scale of genocide and put an equally tyrannical (yet mortal) regime in charge in Gerun's stead. Moreover, they treat their allies in this quest as equals with kindness and honor, never withholds vital information from them or knowingly manipulates them, and rarely, if ever, takes overt hostile action against the heroes, only doing and permitting as much evil as is absolutely necessary to bring about the "greater good." By the end of the game they succeed.
* DefectorFromDecadence: They didn't think it right that the Occuria manipulate humanity from afar and sought to change that.
* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Essentially their entire plan. The Occuria use nethicite and its power to control the fate of Ivalice via controlling its rulers. Venat decides this is wrong, and the way to undo it is to teach humans how to make nethicite themselves and shake up the status quo.
* EarlyBirdCameo: That ink spot on the cover, alongside the Judge? It's them.
* EnergyBeings: Just like the rest of the Occuria, they are a flickering indeterminate mass of seemingly calcified magic shrouded in Mist with an invisible face.
* FinalBoss: In a way; when Vayne is impaled by Vaan after the Novus fight, they fuse with him to become The Undying, who is the final opponent of the game.
* FusionDance: They merge with Vayne at the end of the game to become The Undying, the FinalBoss.
* TheHeretic: Directly declared as such by the other Occuria, who cast them out and demand her execution for daring to let humanity govern its own affairs.
* TheHypocrite: Ultimately resorts to the same tactics that they disagreed with the other Occuria using, including allowing rampant slaughter and genocide. While they forms bonds with a few mortals, their dialogue shows she sees most mortals as regretfully but utterly expendable to their plans for their greater good which unfortunately leads to vastly more harmful consequences.
* InvisibleToNormals: Venat is invisible to and unheard by anyone they don't want to interact with. For example, Balthier had written his father Cid off for a madman for routinely talking to this "Venat" character that didn't actually exist outside his own mind. Venat revealing themself to the party in Draklor Laboratory quickly changes his mind.
* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Their parting words to a dying Cid are to affirm that working with him for the past six years was as pleasant and enjoyable for them as it was for him.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Venat is undeniably benevolent as are their intentions, the party even shares her same goals, but Venat’s methods for freeing mortals from the Occuria are still extreme and harmed almost countless people. In the end Venat dies on their own terms with someone they trust, though it is still a painful death brought upon by those who were put though great suffering because of their schemes. Ultimately Venat’s final fate is an interesting example of both good and bad karma hitting them.

* PetTheDog: After Vayne is mortally wounded, Venat offers up their immortality so that he doesn't have to die alone. Similarly, their final farewell to Dr. Cid, saying it was a pleasure working with him.
* PunyHumans: In sharp contrast to the rest of the Occuria, their motivation is that she does not believe that the Occuria (including herself) have the right to manipulate mortal affairs, and believes so precisely because the Occuria are above them. Indeed, they are respectful of her hume allies and graciously compliments Dr. Cid on his resourcefulness when he tries to shrug off his accomplishments as due solely to her teachings. Although the fact they are fine with millions dying to further her schemes to free them suggests there is some amount of 'expendable mortals' they are fine with.

* PurpleProse: Everything it says is flowery and poetic. As a reference to William Shakespeare, their sentences are constructed in iambic pentameter, aside from the actual words used.

* SatanicArchetype: Venat was once a member of the Occuria, but left Giruvegan because they disagreed with the majority opinion (i.e. that humans need to be strictly guided). Because they cannot act on her own, they settle on influencing select humans to help fight their former brethren and their allies.
* SatanIsGood: Played with. A rogue god rebelling against the status quo and aiding the villains... And it turns out they have quite benevolent and understandable reasons for it. Though despite their good intentions, their methods are extreme and cause a lot of trouble the heroes need to address.

* SuicideByCop: Having accomplished thier goals long before the heroes even make the trip to confront Vayne on the ''Bahamut'', they willingly forsakes their immortality to die alongside him at the party's hand rather than stick around and face whatever terrifying idea of "justice" the other Occuria might have in store for them should they get their hands on them somehow.

* VillainousFriendship: With Cid and Vayne. There is no manipulation on Venat's part, the two are actively aware of what they're doing with them and work towards the goal as their equals. Venat speaks and treats them like friends, not pawns or minions.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: They orchestrate a lot of war and destruction, but to their own ideals of a good end.
* YouAreNotAlone: Venat forsakes their immortality so that Vayne does not have to die alone, nor face Occurian judgment.

* BerserkButton: The Occuria are furious over Venat helping the Archadians make their own nethicite and want nothing but their complete and utter destruction, collateral damage be damned. Gerun doesn't take it well when Ashe says Venat is an Occuria too. This outrages the Occuria king so much that they lose their composure and their eyes flare with fury. The other Occuria manifest their physical forms, angered by Ashe's statement.

A list of characters from VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII and its sequel VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIIRevenantWings. '''Note that some spoilers are unmarked.'''

Balthier's steadfast companion and a master of weapons, magic, and mechanics. Fran is one of the Viera, an OneGenderRace [[note]] May not be the case anymore since it’s been mentioned by WordOfGod that male Viera does exist but has yet to be shown.[[/note]] tribe of [[BeastMan bunny-women]] who live in the Golmore Jungle and command powerful magical abilities, such as the ability to "hear" the god-like spirit of the Wood. Fran disagreed with Viera's philosophy of isolation and left her home village, sacrificing many of her natural abilities to live a life of freedom.