History DarkAndTroubledPast / FinalFantasy

** Somewhat dissimilar to the previous three Franchise/FinalFantasy entries but, the second MMORPG entry in the series, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', has an ability called 'The Echo', granted to anyone who witnessed a strange, meteor-shower like the event at the start of the game's story (this includes player characters). The Echo allows the user to touch souls, granting the ability to [[{{Omniglot}} speak to all sentient beings]] and [[JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind enter and change their memories]]. The people on whom it's used without their consent - and are able to recognize someone invading their memories - have at times angrily highlighted the UnfortunateImplications.

*** Hope has a number of these. The first starts as a mere lack of will to live. Nothing too major. Then, he gets pushed into a state of TranquilFury against Snow after the man saves him, [[spoiler:believing he didn't save his mother, marking Snow as irresponsible. Needless to say, Hope and Lightning [[TheEnemyOfMyEnemy begin to bond due to their mutual dislike of the man]], with the latter unintentionally giving Hope the will to create a premeditated murder plan. Just to add to the blunder, she also give him a Survival Knife.]] This marks the longest in-game grudge, spanning for at least four chapters. Eventually, he comes to a RageBreakingPoint after fighting a boss, which causes him to [[spoiler:explode with anger, blasting Snow off of a roof, leaving him hanging over the edge while Hope attempts to kill him with the same knife given to him. However, this alerts the PSICOM forces looking for them, who blast Hope from the roof.]] This, however, is passed once the man [[spoiler:saves his life]]. His final, albeit short, one is experienced on the surface of Gran Pulse, where Hope finds that the powerful forces of Pulse are too much for him. He goes on a HeroicSelfDeprecation rant, [[spoiler:which unlocks his Eidolon, revealing the truth that Eidolons come when you are on your last legs to display your inner strength to you]].

* EmptyShell: In ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' the Warrior of Light (the very first VideoGame/{{Final Fantasy|1}} protagonist) was like this when he first appeared in the cycles of war. He could walk and talk (barely) under his own power but that was about it. When he was first discovered by Prishe it was assumed this was merely a side effect of being summoned. [[spoiler: Turns out he's actually a clone and the reason he started out as a walking vegetable is a side effect of the cloning process.]]

** The same people forget that Cloud pretty much ''[[SeinfeldIsUnfunny started]]'' [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny the stereotype of the angsty brooding hero]] in [[EasternRPG JRPGs.]]

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXVI'': Duchess Anabella Rosfield has a very tumultuous relationship with both her sons: she detests Clive for not being born a Dominant, while his younger brother Joshua is too sickly to realize his true potential. All of it [[spoiler:drives her to betray her duchy, causing Joshua's death, and sell Clive into slavery while she gets a cushy position as the empress of the country she sold out to.]]

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXVI'' pulls no punches when it comes to this trope: [[spoiler:Clive and Joshua's father gets decapitated in front of the latter, while their mother slits her own throat in a fit of delusion while they look on. Dion's mother is said to have cut any ties with him in exchange for money, and he accidentally spears his own father while trying to kill his half-brother who is the puppet of the BigBad. Mid doesn't know what happened to her biological parents, and her adopted father dies protecting Clive.]]

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has Rachel, who serves as TheGwenStacy for Locke. One day, while exploring a cave with Rachel, he was too slow to keep her from falling down a cliff, which led to her contracting amnesia. [[WhatTheHellHero Her father called out Locke on this]] and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere Locke left his hometown]], and while he was away, Rachel was killed in an Imperial attack. Locke fully [[ItsAllMyFault blames himself]] for once again not being there to protect her, like he promised he would. This is why he makes it his mission to protect Terra and Celes.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': One of the earliest examples in video games as well. Cloud Strife, the protagonist, suffers from freaky headaches and weird disjointed flashbacks. It turns out that Cloud was never in SOLDIER, let alone had ever been a 1st Class SOLDIER, as he had been proclaiming throughout the game. Cloud had instead been a Shinra Infantryman, but the combined trauma of having been experimented on by [[MadScientist Dr. Hojo]] for five years turning him into a "[[CloningBlues clone]]" or "copy" of the villain, Sephiroth, and has been acting under Sephiroth's MindControl for the game so far[[note]]which ironically, did involve a key component of SOLDIER creation, giving him genuine SOLDIER abilities[[/note]]. Even more, it is eventually revealed that much of his memories were not his own, but were in fact partly borrowed from that of his dead best friend Zack Fair, and watching his best friend, the actual Zack, get shot to death by Shinra soldiers, caused Cloud to have a mental breakdown in which he adopted Zack's identity as a 1st Class SOLDIER, and replaced his memories featuring Zack with memories of himself doing what Zack did. When [[BigBad Sephiroth]] reveals this to Cloud, he doesn't take it well. [[HeroicBSOD At all]]. Even more confusingly, when he recovers from said HeroicBSOD, he realizes he was never a clone to begin with (what he really is, is quite complicated, but it involves the way the {{Super Soldier}}s are created, and how TheVirus contains the {{genetic memor|y}}ies of those infected). However, when he finally regains his [[FakeMemories true memories]], he finally [[CharacterDevelopment develops]] into a fully-fledged person.