History Fridge / FinalFantasyVI

* In the Pixel Remaster version, the full-vocal performance of the opera segment has Celes singing differently than the rest of the actors, certainly less operatic than anyone else. This makes sense when ones remembers that Celes is a soldier and "not some opera floozy", so she naturally wouldn't sound like a trained singer.

* In the Pixel Remaster version, some gamers are quite unhappy with the full-vocal performance of the opera segment, as it isn't quite up to their lofty standards. Unless you know that Celes is, of course, a general and not some opera floozy.

** On a similar note, you find the esper Odin petrified. In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', you have to fight him and and win in under one minute to gain his summon magic. On both rereleases, he is not immune to being petrified.

!FridgeHorror
* One of the pieces of Magicite Terra can equip, learn spells from and summon is her father's. Magicite are the remains of a dead Esper. ''Terra can equip her father's corpse.''
** I personally had her always equip him, because her summoning her own father in battle felt appropriate. Against Kefka, it even felt ''satisfying''.
* One of the most prominent examples is the fate of the non-playable Returners. They are never seen again in the World of Ruin and the fates of the officials such as Banon are never revealed. Just what happened to them?
* The Gesthalian Empire spent a lot of time trying to harness magical power for humans. Eventually, it's revealed that they did this by experimenting on captured Espers -- but Espers only pass along their magic when they die and turn into Magicite. The Empire ''did not know this'' until the events of the game. The last raid on their home was performed when Terra was just a baby. That means that for almost twenty years, those Espers were imprisoned and experimented upon, knowing that any time one of them died they were just one test away from ensuring a death sentence for all of the rest of them...
** Puts an entirely different spin on when you get all their Magicite in the facility. It's not that they killed themselves to give you their power, it's that after twenty years of hanging on so as to not let the Empire understand the true nature of their power, they finally just...let go.
*** It could also be that the Espers, after being drained of their power, were disposed of in the same way as Shiva and Ifrit. The ones that then subsequently die in the garbage dump become the various bits of Magicite you randomly find throughout the game.
*** Well, there's also the fresh crop of Espers Kefka slaughters during his rampage in Thamasa.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', when you find Mog in the World of Ruin, he's just staring at a spot in the wall of the (now empty) moogle's den. If you search that spot, you find the Moogle's charm... in the SNES and PS versions. In the retranslated GBA version, the name given is "Molulu's Charm". Molulu was one of the Ten Moogles who fight to protect Terra way back in the Mines fight. Specifically, Molulu fought right next to Mog during the battle. And [[AllThereInTheManual supplementary materials]] reveal that Molulu was Mog's ''girlfriend'', and gave him the charm as a present. Mog is very likely the only Moogle spared from the apocalypse. He probably spent the entire year just [[HeroicBSOD forlornly staring at that charm]], because it's all that's left of Molulu, of his entire people. And... when Kefka asks the party what they could possibly have that gives them the strength to keep living... Mog's only answer is "New pals, Kupo!". Because all his old friends are... [[TearJerker Oh Mog!]]
** And it gets even [[BlatantLies better!]] The charm is an equippable Relic. Remember what it does? It stops RandomEncounters. Molulu gave that charm to Mog to protect Mog from monsters. That charm is WHY Mog was the only Moogle to survive the apocalypse. And why Mog is [[LastOfHisKind totally]] [[FateWorseThanDeath alone]].
*** It gets waaaay [[BlatantLies better]] than that! Molulu was also the weakest of the moogles, which means she gave up her only chance at survival so he could live in her stead.
* A bit of FridgeHorror that takes a while to click. Gau's father abandons him on the Veldt. He puts a new born baby in the place where every monster in the world migrates. Yes Gau's father was insane but that still doesn't make the action itself any less heinous.
** But since he saw Gau as a monster, it makes a certain twisted kind of sense to put a newborn baby "monster" in a place full of other monsters. He thought he was returning the "monster" to its own kind.
* Magicite is only created when an Esper dies, right? Ever since the GBA port, Gilgamesh's Magicite has been an obtainable item. The series has often implied that Gilgamesh is the same person in each of his various appearances, as opposed to being a series of different, indigenous incarnations (like Bahamut or Cid). Does this mean the world of ''FINAL FANTASY VI'' is where Gilgamesh canonically dies?
* In some versions of the game, Gestahl expresses a wish to see Celes and Kefka conceive children to populate his new empire. If Celes had taken him up up on his offer atop the Floating Continent, rejoined the Gesthalian Empire, and borne Kefka's children, the children could have inherited insanity from their [[PsychoPrototype damaged father]]. Imagine a vast empire with powerful magic and technology at its disposal, being led by hopelessly insane mages. Players see how much damage ''one'' insane mage causes; how much damage could an entire family of insane mages do?
** No wonder they needed a self-help booklet.
* One scene shown during the destruction of the world is of a massive chasm opening in the earth. Some people can be seen grasping onto the crags and attempting to climb out, only for the chasm to suddenly shut again. The people stuck in there are not seen again. You can thank the technical limitations of the Super Nintendo, and perhaps Nintendo's 90's-era censorship policies, for not showing the chasm ''stained with blood and crushed bodies''!
* The fact that the Flan monsters found in the Magitek Research Facility garbage chute have "Magicite shards" that can be stolen. Since the garbage chute is shown to be where the Gesthalian Empire puts Espers after completely draining their powers, this suggests that the Flans may eat them alive after they are dumped there, too weak to move or fight back, absorbing some of their essence in the process. Its even possible that the Empire purposefully put the Flans down there as a sort of biological waste disposal agent. And then there's all those empty Esper tubes...

* The empire spent a lot of time trying to harness magical power for humans. Eventually, it's revealed that they did this by experimenting on captured Espers -- but Espers only pass along their magic when they die and turn into Magicite. The Empire ''did not know this'' until the events of the game. The last raid on their home was performed when Terra was just a baby. That means that for almost twenty years, those Espers were imprisoned and experimented upon, knowing that any time one of them died they were just one test away from ensuring a death sentence for all of the rest of them...

* In some versions of the game, Gestahl expresses a wish to see Celes and Kefka conceive children to populate his new empire. If Celes had taken him up up on his offer atop the Floating Continent, rejoined the empire, and borne Kefka's children, the children could have inherited insanity from their [[PsychoPrototype damaged father]]. Imagine a vast empire with powerful magic and technology at its disposal, being led by hopelessly insane mages. Players see how much damage ''one'' insane mage causes; how much damage could an entire family of insane mages do?

* The fact that the Flan monsters found in the Magitek Research Facility garbage chute have "Magicite shards" that can be stolen. Since the garbage chute is shown to be where the empire puts Espers after completely draining their powers, this suggests that the Flans may eat them alive after they are dumped there, too weak to move or fight back, absorbing some of their essence in the process. Its even possible that the Empire purposefully put the Flans down there as a sort of biological waste disposal agent. And then there's all those empty Esper tubes...

* The Tunnel Armor boss seems like a GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere, a boss thrown into the end of Locke's scenario just to have a boss... the hint is in the name. "Tunnel Armor," which seems to be an underground digging machine, and is encountered shortly after the Empire conquered South Figaro and Figaro Castle burrowed away. Later in the game you find a tunnel dug from the Figaro cave into Figaro Castle, dug by sandworms. Tunnel Armor was ostensibly the Empire trying the same thing; digging through the Figaro cave to the castle. Then Locke escapes town with Celes, the Empire almost certainly finds out quickly, and the Tunnel Armor is given new orders to stop them from reaching Narshe.

** Then there's the whole thing about the [[{{Brainwashed}} Slave Crown]] the Empire put on Terra. If they were raising her as a TykeBomb, why would they need to use the crown to shut down her individuality? The answer comes in the World of Ruin. Espers are not naturally emotional creatures. Most of the Espers seen are eerily calm, even when the Empire invades or when they're sacrificing themselves. Emotions are alien to them, and to their powers. When Terra becomes an orphan mom and begins to learn about emotions like love, the emotional turmoil causes her powers to wane to the point that she can't fight at all. The Empire must have realized that emotions drain Terra's powers, and used the Slave Crown to keep their weapon in top form at all times by shutting down her emotions.
*** That doesn't explain why there is only ONE Slave Crown in the entire game. For something so useful, you'd think the Empire, with all of its wealth and resources, would be able to make AT LEAST a few more of those damn things wouldn't they? Maybe it would be a better investment than producing powered armor which can be beaten with bare hands and simple bladed weapons.
*** But it does. The Empire didn't NEED the Slave Crown before it got its hands on Terra. Prior to that, they could rely on more conventional control techniques like propaganda or outright brainwashing to control their soldiers. But Terra's Half-Esper nature made those techniques ineffective. So naturally, they came up with a new method. Why is there only ONE Slave Crown in the entire game? Because it's the First one.

*** Interesting note, Arvis seems to be QUITE familiar with slave crowns. He explains to Terra why she can't remember anything and is feeling dizzy. Now, either Arvis was in fact the inventor of the Slave Crown aiding the Returners over the guilt of building the thing or the Empire has employed their use enough that the Returners know how they work. Given that they can cause severe amounts of amnesia if damaged, it is most likely that the Empire doesn't was a risk of mind wiping anyone useful. At the very least it explains why they didn't just Slave Crown Celes once she proved troublesome.

* One of the most prominent examples is the fate of the Returners. They are never seen again in the World of Ruin and the fates of the officials such as Banon are never revealed. Just what happened to them?

* OK, so, in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', Espers have to die in order to produce Magicite. You fid the Bahamut magicite in the mouth of the Deathgaze enemy. So, Deathgaze must've killed Bahamut. How? Well, Deathgaze's attack pattern is to open every encounter with Level 5 Death, killing everything whose level is a multiple of five. Looking through the Final Fantasy Wiki, I found that in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'', Bahamut's first appearance in the series as a boss (rather than an NPC), his level is precisely 50. That's a multiple of 5! Probably a huge coincidence, but I'm calling it brilliance.

** Furthermore; she may have also been intended as a means of drawing enemy fire away form Kefka and the Emperor.

** Since the party planned this in advance, they probably discussed it - offscreen, for UnspokenPlanGuarentee reasons.

* During Sabin's scenario, no matter how things play out, Shadow insists on leaving the party before they reach the Veldt. The background of his third nightmare sequence shows [[spoiler: that is where he abandoned Billy/Baram, the source of all his suicide-inducing guilt]]. And when you find him in the World of Ruin, [[spoiler:he's laying injured in a cave on the Veldt.]]

*** I just realized Celes's scene in the Opera, where she throws the flowers from the top of the castle singing about despair for the future with her love Draco gone, parallels the scene later on [[spoiler:after Kefka breaks the world, if Cid dies, when she climbs to the top of a cliff and throws herself off it for pretty much the same reasons.]]
* Something struck me as odd about Celes, her "Runic" ability is useless in-universe; humanity lost the ability to do magic after the war of the magi and now only specifically altered imperial soldiers can use magic. What is the point of a power that only weakens your allies? Then it hit me; why would a woman with [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation obvious mental issues]] be made a general? She was a throwaway asset groomed for ''exactly one battle''. If she hadn't turned traitor she would doubtlessly have lead imperial forces [[spoiler:into the Esper world.]] Think about it: what is more frightening to an Esper; fighting enemies who, while using weapons you've never seen, are perfectly vulnerable to magic, or an enemy commander who can nullify your magic with a snap of her fingers? Really makes you realize how evil the empire is if they would control a person for her entire life to gain an advantage in one battle.
** Furthermore; she may have also been intended as a means of drawing enemy fire away form Kefka [[spoiler:and the Emperor.]]

** And after [[spoiler: You take Gau to see him, the father says everything's fixed. You did good.]] Or AlternateCharacterInterpretation - He was always crazy, therefore never mentally fit to be a father to begin with.

* Celes' TearJerker moment mirrors almost ''exactly'' the movements she goes through during the opera scene. The part where she throws the flowers from the balcony takes on a whole new meaning once you compare it to her [[spoiler:throwing herself from the high cliff]].

* Most of the entries on this page are FridgeBrilliance, so here's some FridgeHorror to go with that: In the second half of the game, Strago is found at [[spoiler: the Cult of Kefka, worshiping Kefka. An NPC at the base of the tower informs you that all the worshipers have sold their souls to Kefka. In the GBA version, the relic found at the top of the tower is the Soul of Thamasa. Thamasa is Strago's hometown. He sold his soul to Kefka, and that's why you have to climb the tower-to get it back!]]

*** Speaking of which, Kefka himself. It seems out of place to have a villain with such unexplained motives in a game that had more focus on its characters than any before it. But that's exactly the point - Kefka doesn't have a reason or motive aside from doing what he wants to do. When he calls the heroes out on their cliche [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "self-help booklet"]] speech, it's because he can't comprehend that the heroes have something that drives them, even though they don't enjoy fighting at all. "Hopes. Dreams. Where do they come from? And where do they take you? These things... I will destroy!" He genuinely doesn't know, and it pisses him off.

* Everyone remember Gau's kooky father? The guy who is always looking for repairmen? Wonder why he's so obsessed with them. When I recently watched the scene where the party introduces Gau to him, I realized he said that he routinely has nightmares about the "demon child". What he did to his son still haunts him. And it's clearly driven him mad and ruined his life. He's obsessed with fixing and repairing things because he's desperate for someone to fix and repair the mistake he made all those years ago, when he left his son to die. -- {{deeman45}}

** Then there's the whole thing about the [[{{Brainwashed}} Slave Crown]] the Empire put on Terra. If they were raising her as a TykeBomb, why would they need to use the crown to shut down her individuality? The answer comes in the World of Ruin. Espers are not naturally emotional creatures. Most of the Espers seen are eerily calm, even when the Empire invades or when they're sacrificing themselves. Emotions are alien to them, and to their powers. When Terra becomes an orphan mom and begins to learn about emotions like love, the emotional turmoil causes her powers to wane to the point that she can't fight at all. The Empire must have realized that emotions drain Terra's powers, and used the Slave Crown to keep their weapon in top form at all times by shutting down her emotions. -Enlong

* OK, so, in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', Espers have to die in order to produce Magicite. You fid the Bahamut magicite in the mouth of the Deathgaze enemy. So, Deathgaze must've killed Bahamut. How? Well, Deathgaze's attack pattern is to open every encounter with Level 5 Death, killing everything whose level is a multiple of five. Looking through the Final Fantasy Wiki, I found that in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'', Bahamut's first appearance in the series as a boss (rather than an NPC), his level is precisely 50. That's a multiple of 5! Probably a huge coincidence, but I'm calling it brilliance. @/{{Enlong}}

* What's the point of Gogo in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. He's not only a funny cameo of a [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere boss]] in VideoGame/FinalFantasyV, but his entire skill-set changing gimmick is a throw-back to how Mimics worked in V, just like Gogo, they could change their entire skill-set, even throwing out the Item command. Suddenly, the most personality-lacking character became a hilareous cameo. It only got better when the remake of VI came along and revealed that Gogo was mimicking the main characters all along; they were saving the world, so he would save the world too. All in the name of the "true path of mimicry". Hilarious - @/{{Enlong}}

*** Also, Gogo draws a disturbing parallel to Kefka. One's a [[MonsterClown clown]], one's a mime, and both of them don't take their roles too seriously. But where Kefka is having fun destroying the world, the other's having fun saving it. -SweetMadness
*** Speaking of which, Kefka himself. It seems out of place to have a villain with such unexplained motives in a game that had more focus on its characters than any before it. But that's exactly the point - Kefka doesn't have a reason or motive aside from doing what he wants to do. When he calls the heroes out on their cliche [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "self-help booklet"]] speech, it's because he can't comprehend that the heroes have something that drives them, even though they don't enjoy fighting at all. "Hopes. Dreams. Where do they come from? And where do they take you? These things... I will destroy!" He genuinely doesn't know, and it pisses him off. -{{Socran}}
*** Some men just want to watch the world burn. -corneliustacitus
*** Interesting that one of the main themes in FF VI is friendship, and Kefka is essentially a man with no friends, and thus no connection to the world. A connection to the world is meaningful in the game via a connection with people. Terra spends her time worrying that she can't feel love and so isn't a person, but her friends and her connection to the town she adopts renders that point moot. Kefka is the villain of the game about friendship because he is ultimately alone.-{{Karmathestrange}}
*** I just realized Celes's scene in the Opera, where she throws the flowers from the top of the castle singing about despair for the future with her love Draco gone, parallels the scene later on [[spoiler:after Kefka breaks the world, if Cid dies, when she climbs to the top of a cliff and throws herself off it for pretty much the same reasons.]] -- Tropers/{{Zephid}}
* Something struck me as odd about Celes, her "Runic" ability is useless in-universe; humanity lost the ability to do magic after the war of the magi and now only specifically altered imperial soldiers can use magic. What is the point of a power that only weakens your allies? Then it hit me; why would a woman with [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation obvious mental issues]] be made a general? She was a throwaway asset groomed for EXACTLY ONE BATTLE. If she hadn't turned traitor she would doubtlessly have lead imperial forces [[spoiler:into the Esper world.]] Think about it: what is more frightening to an Esper; fighting enemies who, while using weapons you've never seen, are perfectly vulnerable to magic, or an enemy commander who can nullify your magic with a snap of her fingers? Really makes you realize how evil the empire is if they would control a person for her entire life to gain an advantage in one battle

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', when you find Mog in the World of Ruin, he's just staring at a spot in the wall of the (now empty) moogle's den. If you search that spot, you find the Moogle's charm... in the SNES and PS versions. In the retranslated GBA version, the name given is "Molulu's Charm". Molulu was one of the Ten Moogles who fight to protect Terra way back in the Mines fight. Specifically, Molulu fought right next to Mog during the battle. And [[AllThereInTheManual supplementary materials]] reveal that Molulu was Mog's ''girlfriend'', and gave him the charm as a present. Mog is very likely the only Moogle spared from the apocalypse. He probably spent the entire year just [[HeroicBSOD forlornly staring at that charm]], because it's all that's left of Molulu, of his entire people. And... when Kefka asks the party what they could possibly have that gives them the strength to keep living... Mog's only answer is "New pals, Kupo!". Because all his old friends are... [[TearJerker Oh Mog!]] * sob* -- @/{{Enlong}}

* Why is the Ice Dragon so small? Probably because in [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons]], white dragons are the smallest of the chromatic dragons, and they're ice-elemental.