Characters / Final Fantasy IX

This page deals with the characters from Final Fantasy IX.

All spoilers are unmarked.

---

Heroes

Zidane Tribal

Virtue: You don't need a reason to help people.

Voiced by: Romi Park (Japanese), Bryce Papenbrook (English, Dissidia series)

The Hero of the game. A member of the Tantalus Theater Group, a group of entertainers-thieves. Also a bit of a playboy. At the beginning of the game, Tantalus was sent to Alexandria by Lindblum's Regent Cid Fabool IX on a mission to kidnap the princess, only to get entangled in the coming war. Zidane is aware of the fact that he's an orphan, and only remembers one thing about his past: a blue light. He's always wanted to find out where he came from, though it's not his all-consuming life goal. In contrast to his previous Final Fantasy heroes, he's quite carefree and cheerful, with very little angst or existential doubt.

---

• Accentuate the Negative: After learning that he was originally created to destroy all life on Gaia, he believes that he doesn't deserve to be friends with the same people he was originally supposed to destroy. He also ends up agreeing with Steiner's earlier statements about him being nothing but trouble, despite Steiner long since growing out of that viewpoint.
• Accidental Pervert: He inadvertently touches Garnet's butt while both of them are climbing a ladder. The lady is not amused.
• The Ace: He's intelligent, cultured, street-smart, handsome, and very capable in battle.
• All-Loving Hero: He lives his live by the simple question, "Do I need a reason to help people?" and variations thereof. Those who seek to hurt innocents are the only ones who earn his wrath.
• Animal Motifs: Monkeys. Justified Trope, since it's a Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My! universe.
• Anti-Anti-Christ: He was created for the sole reason of destroying all life on Gaia, but because of Kuja's actions he is left as an infant on the very same world that he was meant to destroy. Learning this horrible truth from his creator, as well as having his "soul" ripped out of him, becomes a massive Heroic BSoD for our hero. He only recovers when his friends demonstrate The Power of Friendship and remind him "You Are Not Alone."
• Artificial Human: He's a Genome, like a lot of beings on Terra, but a special one. Garland created him to be an angel of death.
• Awful Truth: The revelation of his Antichrist origins and his inability to stop Garland when they meet hits him hard. For a while, he starts acting way out of character to his friends.
• Badass Boast: To Garland: "I AM the new Angel of Death! Yours!" Also counts as Calling the Old Man Out, after Garland told Zidane that he was created on Terra.
• Belated Love Epiphany: Zidane only realizes that he loves Garnet after she is crowned queen (and thus becomes seemingly inaccessible for him). Before that, he's all playful and flirting, but doesn't think it's for real.
• BFS: His thief swords, especially the Ultima Weapon, get quite big◊.
• Big Brother Instinct: He sees Vivi almost as a surrogate little brother, encouraging him to come out of his shell and being very protective of him.
• Big Brother Mentor: He looks out for Vivi from early on and helps him understand the world.
• Break the Cutie: The end of Disc 3. Garland attempts to rip his soul out after revealing to Zidane his true origins as Gaia's destroyer. The revelation that he was meant to be what Kuja is now shakes him hard.
• Cain and Abel: His relationship to his older brother Kuja is complicated to say the least. They are enemies, then they are both against their father, then they are enemies again, but Zidane still makes sure he doesn't die alone.
• Cannot Spit It Out: His true feelings, that is. By the time he's actually fallen for Garnet, he can't bring himself to tell her.
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: He constantly flirts with Garnet throughout the game, but backs off slightly after Disc 2, when he realizes he loves her.
• Chivalrous Pervert: His overworld sprite has him turning his head in the direction of passing females! Is he checking if they need help, or just checking them out? You decide.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: His heroic streak is played for drama during disc 3. He's always helping people as part of his efforts to conceal his own problems. Mutually accepting the help of his friends in return doesn't come easy to him, which is why after his Heroic BSoD he brushes off his allies and tries to continue on alone.
• Cultured Warrior: He's a warrior, he's a thief, and he's quite a good actor! And possibly a musician as well, considering how much he knows about music.
• Deadpan Snarker: Zidane is very snarky when he wants to be, mostly towards Steiner on the first disc and then towards Quina, Amarant and sometimes Freya.
• Devious Daggers: Favors Dual Wielding daggers, fitting for a thief by trade and rogue by inclination. His "thief swords", double-bladed spear or staff-like weapons, seem less fitting until you realize that most of them are synthesized by combining two daggers.
• Dogged Nice Guy: He's constantly trying to earn Garnet's favor. At first, she's too naive to realize what he's doing, and later has caught on to his behavior and knows not to fall for it.
• Doom Magnet: To the point that the Console RPG Cliche List named these tropes after him. Surprisingly, it all happens for plot reasons (at least in theory) and it's never commented on by anyone in-game.
  Zidane's Curse: An unlucky condition in which every location in the game will coincidentally wind up being destroyed just after the hero arrives.
• Double Weapon: He can use two completely different kinds of weapons. One of them (and probably among the strongest weapons) is a stick with two blades on each side.
• Drowning My Sorrows: At the beginning of Disc 3 he's bemoaning his fate in a tavern. If he's not getting wasted, it certainly looks like it.
• Dual Wielding: One kind of weapon he can use is a couple of knives in Reverse Grip.
• Dub Name Change: To Djidane in the French version, in order to avoid confusion with French soccer player Zinedine Zidane. In the Spanish version, he's called "Yitán", for exactly the same reason, and the same happens in the Italian version, where his name is changed in to Gidan0. Zidane was originally named Jitan.
• The Dulcinea Effect:
  "Yeah. She's cute, and she's in trouble. What do I need to think about?"
• Establishing Character Moment: The two core parts of his personality, a love of the ladies and his drive to protect them, happen at two different moments.
  • When he sees Garnet captured by the plant monster's minion, he enters into Trance, which only happens when one is feeling incredibly strong emotions. And for comparison, Steiner (Garnet's sworn protector and fiercely loyal subject) didn't change.
  • It doesn't happen until about an hour or two into the game, but one memorable moment (which, incidentally, took place during the first instance of Zidane's leitmotif playing in the BGM) firmly establishes that Zidane isn't just a Lovable Rogue, he's also something else as well...
  "Ooo, soft..."
• Everyone Has Standards: Zidane is unashamedly perverted towards girls, but will always respect their boundaries. After the...incident involving Garnet and Zidane getting onto the Cargo Ship, it's made out to be an accident on his part and he awkwardly tries to apologize. He is also offended when Steiner accuses Zidane of "touching" Garnet when everyone fell unconscious in the Ice Cavern due to the work of Black Waltz 1.
• Experienced Protagonist: What sets him apart from everyone else in his party (especially Garnet) is that he's been on several adventures in the past—none as grand as this one, but enough that he is keenly aware of what needs to be done. He also has many connections, friends and even enemies throughout the world, including Freya and Amarant, which plays a part in their motivations to join his party.
• Expy: He is based on, and has many parallelisms to, Son Goku. Both are members of a monkey-like race from a destroyed planet and are sent to their current one with the intent of destroying it but ended up being its protector. Both have an elder brother as an antagonist and a princess as their Love Interest. Even Zidane's Trance form looks similar to Goku's Super Saiyan 4.
• Genre Savvy: As a theater actor and veteran adventurer, Zidane is quite astute when it comes to plot observations. He considers himself the hero of the journey long before the other characters take him seriously about it and justifies many of his more risky and daring moments by proclaiming himself to be The Hero of this adventure with the appropriate amount of Plot Armor. This contrasts him with Kuja, who is just as savvy, but embraces the role of a villain.
• Gentleman Thief: He's cultured, friendly, and has no problem casually swiping valuables from civilians. This is probably one of the few Final Fantasy titles where Kleptomaniac Hero is in-character for the protagonist.
• Grim Reaper: Garland created him to be an angel of death that inflicted destruction and led the departing souls to him.
• Handsome Lech: Good looking, and always thinking of girls.
• Heroic BSoD: Gets struck with one at a critical point in the game when he learns the Awful Truth about his origin. He even refuses his friends because how could they be friends if he is meant to be their killer?
• He's Back!: After every one of his friends, and lastly Dagger, call him out on his mindset after the Heroic BSoD, he comes back to his original personality. Their refusal to leave him even knowing what he is helps rebuild him.
• Hidden Depths: A far more complex character than he initially seems. It's lampshaded/played for laughs when he wonders if Garnet has finally fallen for him after he let on to her about this.
• Honor Before Reason: His Protect Girls ability, depending on your party composition. It makes sense if Garnet and/or Eiko are the only ladies in the party, but he'll even take hits for Freya, and is coded to do the same for the similarly bulky Beatrix, even if there's no opportunity for this to ever happen without hacking, who wears heavy armor compared to his and is likely always in the back row.
• Hypocrite: He chastises Amarant for running off alone in Ispen's Castle and tells him that everyone works together as a team. Later on in Terra, after learning the truth about his origins and having part of his soul sucked out, Zidane pushes everyone away and insists he needs to do things alone. Amarant rightfully calls out Zidane on this, though Zidane eventually bounces back and apologizes.
• Keet: He's very energetic and playful most of the time.
• KidAnova: Zidane being sixteen years old, his sex drive isn't out of place at all, but people not used to the Super-Deformed art style thought he was much younger.
• Ladykiller in Love: Although Zidane flirts with other women through most of the game, he falls hard for Garnet and eventually realizes that she's his true love.
• Lightning Bruiser: He has the highest Agility among all the characters, and has the second highest Strength as well as excellent defense, so Zidane will easily be one of the best party members. Good thing the game requires he be in the party most of the time.
• Little Bit Beastly: His monkey tail. Being that this title is full of such diverse characters and races, it isn't that noticeable. Which makes the reveal that he's a Genome much more surprising, and then you realize no one else you've met so far has had a tail like his.
• Look Behind You: His "What's That?!" Skill has him distract the enemy long enough to maneuver the party into a Back Attack against the enemy.
• Lovable Rogue: Cheerful, wise-cracking, and happy to inform you he's living on the wrong side of the law and enjoys that lifestyle.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: After the second escape from Alexandria, Dagger worries about the friends they left behind. Zidane assures her that they can handle things on their own, because they're "the best dragon knight of Burmecia, the female general of Alexandria...and Rusty."
• Named After Somebody Famous: Zinedine Zidane, French football player who won The World Cup in 1998.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: A variant. Zidane gave his farewell to his friends before rescuing Kuja after the Final Battle thinking he could die but actually survived. However, he was the only one not there when Vivi died which is the reason the latter addresses the game's Epilogue Letter mainly to him.
• Nice Guy: He may not always be polite, but he's always friendly. To elaborate, unlike Cloud and Squall who shut people out at first, Zidane is always willing to make new friends but many characters commit on how insensitive he can be and a bit crass.
• Noodle Incident: Early in the game, Zidane was telling Dagger about one of his "adventures" until Dagger points out that Vivi hasn't come back (having been kidnapped).
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Zidane secretly empathizes with Vivi heavily. As Vivi struggles to come to terms with his identity as a Living Weapon and how he was created, it secretly reminded Zidane of his own journey to find out where he came from. This comes full circle when Zidane learns that he's the most powerful Living Weapon of them all.
  • In the ending, Zidane says the reason he risks his life to save Kuja is that Zidane would probably have done *everything* Kuja would have done if their roles were reversed.
• Prehensile Tail: His tail is prehensile, although he only took advantage of this once, to hang from the rafters of the pilot's cabin of an Airship.
• The Social Expert: Zidane goes beyond being a Lovable Rogue. He demonstrates high emotional intelligence and reads and acts upon the personalities of multiple characters. He challenges Steiner's rigid view of his queen, and Dagger's naivete. He works to encourage and mentor Vivi, and quickly determines that Eiko is lonely and seeking companionship.
• Stepford Smiler: He's very insecure and lonely, having no memories of his past and no real family aside from Tantalus. The reason he's so friendly and outgoing is to conceal the fact.
• Super Prototype: As the "Angel of Death" Genome he's implied to be one of the strongest of them all and the only one designed to be born as a baby and grow naturally with a normal human lifespan. He's not quite as powerful as Kuja individually but that's suggested to be because Zidane was raised and trained to be a thief rather than trained to use powerful magic like Kuja and Garland meaning he can only access that kind of power in Trance.
• Tomato in the Mirror: He's a Genome, an artificial lifeform that could have been working with Kuja.
• Trapped in Another World: His whole life was being stranded on a world other than his birth place.
• Weapon Twirling: When equipped with the double bladed polearm, he does in his Victory Pose.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Despite being only 16 and younger than the majority of Final Fantasy heroes, he's very mature and intelligent. As well, while some of the other heroes are emotionally crippled due to their self-doubt and insecurities, Zidane copes with his by acting overly friendly and cheerful. It, of course, still leads to eventual problems, but for the most part he's much better adjusted than some of the heroes several years older than him.
• You Are Not Alone: After he discovers why he was created, it takes all of his friends showing him they are still by his side to make him snap out of his Heroic BSoD.

Vivi Ornitier

Sorrow: How do you prove that you exist? Maybe we don't exist...

Voiced by: Ikue Otani (Japanese, Kingdom Hearts II), Melissa Disney (English, Kingdom Hearts II), Kath Soucie (English, World of Final Fantasy and Chocobo GP)

First seen going to Alexandria to see the play "I Want to be Your Canary", he ended up getting quite literally chased onstage during Tantalus' escape. Vivi, like Zidane, has no memories of his past, except for being raised by a Qu (who initially wanted to eat him, but fortunately changed his mind before such a thing happened). He later learns that he is one of the Black Mages, the new soldiers of the Alexandrian military.

---

• Artificial Human: Like all other black mages, he was created in a factory as a weapon of war.
• Awesome, but Impractical: While Vivi is one of the flashier characters, having most of the character development, and with spells like doomsday and flare, and subjectively being the most adorable, most players will have a tough time finding a spot for him in a party. Given that late game (even mid game) the physical attackers will start outdamaging him, and even the white mages with their summons while not having their white magic spells, Vivi is just rendered as an obsolete party member, despite how awesome he is.
• Badass Adorable: He's incredibly cute, but he has all the power a Black Mage needs to crush enemies.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Innocent, shy, and more than a little bit naive...and entirely capable of incinerating you with a thought.
• Big Brother Worship: For his part in his close friendship to Zidane, it's clear Vivi thinks highly of him.
• Black Mage: Quintessential example in looks and skills, much less in character; to put it lightly, he's not aggressive in the slightest, and has to be put under serious threat to even think of using his powers at first.
• Blue Is Heroic: Vivi is wearing a blue robe and is one of the good guys.
• Break the Cutie: Figuring out his origins as a Black Mage really did a number on the poor kid.
• Breakout Character: By far and away the most iconic character to come out of IX, and one of the most famous Final Fantasy characters outright, even rivaling the likes of Gilgamesh, Kefka, Cloud, Yuna, and Balthier in popularity. He's appeared in Kingdom Hearts as the only representative from IX despite Tetsuya Nomura's reluctance to use characters not designed by him, is a starting character in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, and has made appearances without Zidane in games like World of Final Fantasy and Chocobo GP.
• Charged Attack: Can use Focus to power up a spell to use in his next turn.
• Child Mage: Is about nine years old — physically, anyway. Chronologically, he's six months old at the start of the game, making him the youngest ever playable character in any Final Fantasy game.
• Colony Drop: Meteor is just that; dropping a meteor on enemies.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: When a Black Waltz gets murdered, Vivi lets off a fire spell much bigger than he has access to at that point in the game (though it's actually a much realistic take on the trope as Vivi is shown passing out from exhaustion afterwards: his body is not ready to cast a spell this powerful yet, he only managed to do it because of the aforementioned murder). This happens just after the battle with said button-pusher, in which he starts in Trance. This makes the battle very easy.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He's a Black Mage but he's a very nice and gentle person. It causes problems throughout the game when people can't tell him apart from the hostile and destructive Black Mages the villains employ.
• Deadly Distant Finale: As expected of his shortened lifespan, Vivi dies some time in between the final battle and when Zidane returns to Alexandria.
• Died Happily Ever After: While intended as a major tear jerker, Vivi being granted life in Heaven for all of the heroics he has done is heartwarming in context.
  "Everyone...Thank you. Farewell. My memories will be part of the sky."
• The Eeyore: Vivi is going through an existential crisis for the majority of the game, which leads him to be very morose and prone to worry.
• The Faceless: A play on the Black Mage usually having a face shadowed by the hat; in this title, that shadow is their face.
• Fantastic Racism: Thanks to the actions of the Alexandrian Black Mages, Vivi finds himself on the receiving end of this quite frequently and is occasionally viewed as little more than a soulless golem.
• Gender-Blender Name: In most countries, Vivi is a girl name.
• Happily Adopted: Raised by Quan and has fond memories of it. Quan was actually grooming Vivi to be a snack (something that Vivi isn't aware of).
• Inconsistent Spelling: His last name, Ornitier, is variably spelled "Orunitia", an exact romanization of the Japanese name.
• Innocent Prodigy: He's very proficient with magic, but is also naive and innocent.
• Kid-Appeal Character: His youth, cute design, and magical prowess.
• Killed Offscreen: He dies some time between defeating Necron and the reunion in Alexandria at the very end (due to his very short lifespan), but his numerous "children" are present in his place, and it's clear his soul has ascended into Heaven.
• The Klutz: Falls flat on his face the first time we see him (and several times later, of course).
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Not so much in level progression, but the Focus skill means he can reach extremely high damage even with beginner spells.
• Meaningful Name Vivi is latin for "Living" or "To Live", something his character is focused around.
• Mythology Gag: Vivi bears a strong resemblance to the Black Mage in the first Final Fantasy game. His pants are derived from the design of the Black Wizard/Magus (the upgrade of a Black Mage) of Final Fantasy III.
• Parental Substitute: Vivi's adoption by Master Quan leads the Qu to become a surrogate grandfather to him. Quan teaches Vivi about how the world works, and Vivi in turn refers to him as his "Grandpa."
• Parting-Words Regret: Inverted; Vivi is delivering the narration at the ending because he has finally expired. It's implied that he didn't live long enough to see Zidane come back.
• Perpetual Frowner: He doesn't really have a face to express himself with, but it's implied.
  Eiko: Why the long face?!
  Vivi: Oh, my face is always like this.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: Born as the prototype of a series of heartless, mindless slaughter machines, and goes on to fight against his creators and enslavers, becoming a hero in the process.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: No taller than your average kid, but holy hell does he pack a wallop with his spells.
• Playing with Fire: His very first spell is "Fire", and he uses it quite often outside of battle — for trying to scare off Alexandrian Guards, frying Black Waltz 3 to a crisp, for melting ice walls, for cooking...
• Posthumous Narration: Vivi is the one delivering the closing narration of the game from the afterlife.
• Power Gives You Wings: Downplayed; While he doesn't gain literal wings, his Trance form grants him an angel wing crest over his chest, calling forward to the Black Waltz line.
• Punny Name: His name in Japanese is written as "Bibi". "Bibiru" roughly means "to be frightened", which describes Vivi's nervousness in combat, particularly early in the game.
• Running Gag: Vivi's either tripping or being bumped by someone either from the front or behind, notably by Puck.
• Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: Vivi is a famous example of this. His design of small glowing eyes and an unknowable face shadowed by his hat are in direct homage to the classic Black Mage design.
• Shrinking Violet: Tremendously shy and withdrawn, it's hard for him to connect with others.
• The Smart Guy: He might not be very experienced, but Vivi is surprisingly knowledgeable and eloquent for his age; Quan taught him much over the course of his education.
• Spanner in the Works: Despite all the mess that was finding out Garnet wanted to be kidnapped during the play and how she basically inserted herself into said play by accident and managed to fool everyone she was acting (while still wearing the White Mage robes to cover her face), in comes Vivi being chased by guards and sets Garnet's robes on fire by accident. Cue Oh, Crap! by everyone as hell breaks loose and they are forced to crash land into Evil Forest instead of reaching Lindblum directly...
• Squishy Wizard: His spells can decimate enemies, but he has pitiful HP and defenses.
• Super Prototype: He's the first Black Mage, which is why he's so much stronger than them and has a longer life span.
• Unstoppable Rage: His response to Black Waltz 3 obliterating a group of Black Mages is to trance and obliterate Black Waltz 3.
• We All Die Someday: He says this almost word-for-word (aside from using "stop" as a Deadly Euphemism) against the Final Boss if you arrange your party so that he gets the Pre Ass Kicking One Liner.
  We're all gonna stop some day, but not today! Let's go, guys!
• Wise Beyond Their Years: His official age is 9 years old though we find out later he is much younger, and learns through the course of the game that he was created to be a killing machine AND that, because of this, he has a very short lifespan. Afterwards, he manages to take this sort of revelation better than most adults such as Kuja who is eventually told similar information about himself and responds to it by throwing a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum.
• Younger Than They Look: The game guide lists his age as 9, which is about what most people assume. In truth he is no more than 6 months old when he buys his ticket to see I Want to Be Your Canary and the game begins. He only lived with his "Grandpa" for about four months before Quan died.

Adelbert Steiner

Dilemma: Having sworn fealty, must I spend my life in servitude?

Voiced by: Minoru Hirota (Japanese, Opera Omnia onwards), Crispin Freeman (English, Chocobo GP)

Captain of the only unit of male soldiers in Alexandria's army, the Knights of Pluto, and bodyguard to the royal family. Loyal to a fault, he only reluctantly teamed up with Zidane to rescue Garnet from Evil Forest in the aftermath of the disastrous escape from Alexandria. He remained hostile towards the thief and his allies (making an exception for Vivi), while refusing to believe that Queen Brahne has finally lost her mind. He later has to accept the truth, and has also learned to see Zidane as an actual comrade and (almost) friend. Has a rocky relationship with General Beatrix, although it's known that the latter may be harboring feelings for him...

---

• Amazon Brigade: Inversion. In Alexandria, an all-female army is the norm, and he's the captain of the small all-male unit.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: As the person with the highest attack stat (next to Zidane with the right equipment) and whose trance triples his damage output, this is a pretty good strategy with him.
• Badass Normal: He uses no magic naturally and travels in a group where almost every other member can use a supernaturally based fighting style in some form. When his Limit Break activates, instead of gaining new powers, he simply hits three times harder than normal.
• Battle Couple: With Beatrix in Disc 3. Due to love letter shenanigans, they are a couple that kicks much ass together.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: He and Beatrix ultimately ended up together despite their initially antagonistic relationship.
• BFS: His swords get pretty damn big later on in the game.
• The Big Guy: The hardest-hitting member of the party in pure power, and wielder of large swords. He views his role within the party as "Garnet's protector" and wears the heaviest armor as part of this.
• Black-and-White Morality: His worldview is all about this, especially before character development kicks in.
  Steiner: I am just trying to do what is right!
  Morrid: Who decides right or wrong? You?
  Steiner: Anyone can tell right from wrong.
  Morrid: Ha ha ha...Still as green as a pickle.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Even though he's not actually Garnet's father, he still acts like the comedic version of this trope in regards to her. He even hates the bad boy she's fallen for.
• Butt-Monkey: Often the butt of Zidane's mischief.
• The Captain: Leader of the Knights of Pluto.
• Cast from Hit Points: Steiner has Darkside, which depletes 12.5% of his max HP in order to attack.
• Character Development: Out of the eight playable characters, Steiner is the one who is most changed by his experiences in the game, learning to grow out of his Black-and-White Morality outlook and to think for himself instead of blindly following orders.
• The Chew Toy: The game punishes him a lot, but most of it is pre-Character Development. After he starts to wise up about the world, he gets a few bones thrown his way.
• The Comically Serious: His self-seriousness is played for laughs, such as when he's looking concerned at the Princess Garnet Doll or generally being unapproachable to villagers who could redirect him.
• Conflicting Loyalty: The basis of his Character Development is what he should be loyal to: The mad queen, the heroic princess, or Alexandria itself? He ends up choosing the princess and Alexandria as a secondary loyalty through her, as he realizes that Queen Brahne is too far gone and the country would be safer under Garnet.
• Cool Sword: Uses Knightly longswords which vary from standard sizes to the BFS.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Orphaned at the age of four during the last war between Alexandria and Burmecia. It's also implied that he's seen a lot of war and strife in his time, as he tells Garnet that he doesn't want her to experience war "as I have".
• Desperation Attack: Minus Strike deals damage equivalent to the difference between Steiner's current and max HP.
• Dumb Muscle: Played with. He comes off as an oaf at first, but it's more out of obstinacy than any actual idiocy; he's mainly lacking in Street Smarts and worldly experience, and is surprisingly well-read and verbose for a man of his position. Yoshitaka Amano's original designs show that he's a pretty muscular guy. Keep in mind that he's strong enough to run around in that heavy armor (even running ahead of Zidane while carrying Garnet out of Evil Forest) and only be winded at one point early on in the game (after running up an entire tower's worth of stairs).
• Empowered Badass Normal: He has absolutely no magic of his own, but he and Vivi work out a combat skill in which Vivi can enchant Steiner's sword with one of his spells.
• Excalibur: One of his swords is called the Excalibur, but it is unknown if it has a connection to King Arthur. Players who manage to get to the end of the game fast enough can secure him a sword called Excalibur II.
• Expy: Confirmed by invoked Word of God to be modeled on Inspector Zenigata. He shares some of the latter's features (square jaw, prominent eyelashes) and core personality traits (authority figure who rivals a monkey-like thief).
• Fire-Forged Friends: He initially treats Zidane with incredible hatred for kidnapping the princess (ignoring that she herself wanted that). As he realizes that Zidane and Tantalus only want to keep Garnet safe just like he does, Steiner gradually warms to Zidane enough to openly root for he and Garnet to be together.
• Gratuitous Latin: In the Italian translation, not only has him spouting Latin idioms here and there, but his techniques are renamed in Latin (as Gladius, for Sword Attacks, and Magicum for magic sword attacks).
• Heavy Equipment Class: One of the two permanent party members capable of using heavy armour, along with being the only character able to use knight swords.
• Honor Before Reason: He refuses to travel with thieves until ordered to by Garnet (despite the dangers of traveling alone), and he refuses to believe Brahne has turned evil until after even Beatrix has accepted it.
• I Gave My Word: His oath of fealty is the source of his inner conflict after Brahne turns evil.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: It's a Hero Antagonist thing in this case. At first he is the lawful soldier hunting a band of thieves and kidnappers, but he's working for the villain.
• Informed Attribute: Everyone mocking his rusty armor is a Running Gag throughout the game, but there is no rust showing on his character model or in any FMVs.
• In-Series Nickname: Zidane refers to him as "Rusty."
• Inspector Javert: He makes no qualms about wanting to arrest Zidane and the rest of the Tantalus because of what they did. However, Steiner noticeably relaxes this stance once they prove invaluable allies.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Vivi: despite an age gap of more than two decades, Steiner has great respect for Vivi's magical abilities, and is openly kind and respectful to him, in sharp contrast with how he treats Zidane and the rest of Tantalus.
• Jerkass to One: He's really only a prick to Zidane, as he's very respectful to Vivi and Garnet, and doesn't interact much with the rest of the party.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Does his best to be this but is often more of a Knight Templar of the Lawful Stupid variety before his Character Development kicks in. At that point, he's all about the heroic saving the day stuff.
• The Lancer: To Zidane for the first half of the game. While Zidane is mature, laid back, and open-minded, Steiner is loud, duty-driven, and naive. Their relationships with Vivi and Garnet also contrasts, with Zidane being Vivi's Big Brother Mentor and flirting with Garnet while Steiner treats Vivi as his superior and Garnet as his charge. Ultimately, they both wish to protect Garnet, even if they have different ideas on how to do it, and of the first four party members, Steiner is easily the most capable after Zidane, both in-battle and when it comes to thinking on his feet.
• Last-Name Basis: He's the only character in the entire Final Fantasy series that the player's name choice affects the surname. It's also done in-universe, as Brahne needs a moment to remember his name when she orders him and Beatrix to find Garnet at the very start of the game.
• Lawful Stupid: Steiner believes in Black-and-White Morality, so he took any instance to thumb his nose upon any member of Tantalus (especially Zidane), and he remains bullheadedly determined to return Garnet to Alexandria despite the fact that this is not only against her wishes, but against overwhelming evidence that Queen Brahne has turned evil. However, it should be noted that during said time, nobody was 100% sure that Alexandria was behind everything. Most of his Character Development revolves around him getting over this.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He's generally depicted as a buffoon early on in the game, but when he gets into a real fight, he's a pretty good swordsman. Story-wise, this happens when he teams up with Beatrix in Disc 3. Fighting to protect the kingdom at her side causes him to automatically to enter into Trance. Notably, he also does his job very well in defending Dagger during their trek through the Mist to South Gate in Disc 2.
• Magikarp Power: His Sword Arts ability. With the exception of Minus Strike (which requires the player to keep him at low HP), all of them are pretty much a waste of time as he will deal more damage by just attacking every round. But his lategame weapons give him access to abilities like Climhazzard and Shock - both of which are very well worth the time.
• Mighty Glacier: He's slow in both mind and body, but his swords hit very hard, having the game's highest Strength. His Trance mode also triples his attack power.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Eventually realizes he can still act on duty if he changes that duty to following the Princess' orders, not the Queen's.
• No Social Skills:Before the game's events, Steiner didn't need to come out of his shell or learn the social skills used outside the castle.
  Steiner: I humbly request your assistance to get back to the castle.
  Female Red Mage: Ha-ha-ha! That's a new one!
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He was such a vocal critic of Zidane for most of the first half of the game that it comes as a surprise to everyone that Steiner entrusted Garnet's safety to him, because Steiner plans to stay behind and help Beatrix and Freya.
• Overrated and Underleveled: He is the captain of the Knights of Pluto, has implied to have had war experience, and can rough up the heroes. Yet when the game starts he's at level one. When he returns in Disk 3 after having previously left, due to being removed from the party for awhile, lags behind everyone but Freya and Quina. It's somewhat justified in that the Knights of Pluto are seen as incompetent boobs. It's suggested in side material that Steiner in his youth was one of the strongest knights of the kingdom and Beatrix's equal but a combination of becoming a stickler for the rules as he got older and having to deal with the incompetence of his division has seriously dulled his skills and kept him from progressing as Beatrix did until he starts getting over his negative personality traits later in the game.
• Papa Wolf: Used comically in regards to Garnet in the first two discs in regards to the "danger" that Zidane supposedly posses to her. It's played much more seriously in Disc 3 when he teams up with Beatrix to protect her.
• Parental Substitute: Alongside Beatrix after Brahne passes on, as he assumes the role of the stern Boyfriend-Blocking Dad to Garnet.
• Perpetual Frowner: He's never happy; more of a "stoic duty" kind of guy. This can be seen in his render and his in-game model is the same.
• Pet the Dog:
  • We know he's not such a total jerk when he treats Vivi nicely, even calling him "Master". It's the only time we see Steiner treat anyone aside from royalty with any respect for most of the first half of the game.
  • While he boasted to Zidane that he'd be hanged for kidnapping Garnet, once he's out of earshot Steiner concedes that Zidane saved Garnet's life several times by then. Steiner then decides he'd petition the queen for a reduced sentence; Life in prison as opposed to execution.
  • He's also disgusted by Black Waltz 3's callous slaughter of the black mages and rushes after Vivi to help him fight the villain without hesitation.
  • It's worth noting that Steiner's trust and respect for Vivi is so high that Vivi being the one to tell him that Queen Brahne ordered the execution of Princess Garnet was what finally got him to seriously question his blind loyalty to the queen.
• The Rival: He sees Beatrix as one because she's also an officer in Alexandria's military. It's mutual.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Implies this to Garnet, when he tells her she must never experience war "as I have."
• Spell Blade: When he is in a party with Vivi, they can team up so Steiner can use the deadly Sword Magic skills.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After he hooks up with Beatrix late in the game, he stops being such a Butt-Monkey and becomes far more competent.
• To Be Lawful or Good: The crux of his Character Development is this dilemma. The lawful decision is obeying his queen and arresting the thieves and kidnappers he's working with, but the good decision is helping a band of brave and friendly rogues stop his power-mad queen. He realizes that he can be both lawful and good by obeying the heroic princess.
• Token Human: Everyone else is either visibly not human (Freya, Vivi, Quina), Ambiguously Human (Amarant), a human subspecies (Garnet, Eiko), or a Genome (Zidane). Steiner is the only explicit human among them.
• Trademark Favorite Food: During his time in Lindblum, he develops a taste for Gysahl Pickles, a local food implied to have a very strong flavor and terrible smell. He later exploits the smell to smuggle Garnet past a checkpoint in a large sack full of them.
• Uncle Sam Wants You: When Vivi is exploring Alexandria at the start of the game, he can find a recruitment poster for the Knights of Pluto that Steiner's put on the wall of the weapons shop.
• Undying Loyalty: Alexandria can count on his sword no matter what; Princess and later, Queen, Garnet could not ask for a more loyal guard.
• The Unfavorite: The Knights of Pluto are generally mocked in Alexandria for being a bunch of incompetent boobs, fit only for an easy job like protecting the Princess. Queen Brahne even forgets Steiner's name because she thinks so little of him.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: His first reaction to seeing an oglop is to kick it away. Even when said oglop is, unbeknownst to him, a transformed Regent Cid.

Garnet "Dagger" Til Alexandros XVII

Devotion: Someday I will be Queen, but I will always be myself.

Voiced by: Emiko Shiratori (singing), Mamiko Noto (Japanese, Opera Omnia)

The female lead of the story, and Zidane's (eventual) Love Interest. She has been aware of her mother's slow descent into madness for some time, and seeks a way to escape her. By coincidence, the best opportunity for her to get out of Alexandria happens to be there just to kidnap her! While on the run, Zidane suggests that Garnet drop her royal bearing, and adopt an alias, to which she chose "Dagger", after Zidane's knife. As it turns out later in the game, Garnet was just an adopted child of the royal family, and is actually one of the last Summoners (along with Eiko).

---

• Action Girl: Despite her nickname, Garnet is more of The Red Mage, being able to use summon magic to kick some butt while also healing others.
• Adopted into Royalty: To replace the King and Queen’s biological daughter who died as a toddler. She originally had no idea there was a Princess Garnet before her.
• Anger Born of Worry: Happens in the ending where Zidane returns in dramatic fashion. She hugs him, then beats on his chest in anger, and then cries on it.
• Badass Bookworm: Knows a lot since she couldn't do much more in the castle other than study the books in Alexandria Castle's library, and she puts it to good use throughout the adventure. This is especially apparent when her familiarity with "I Wanna Be Your Canary" enables her to perform on the fly with impeccable skill.
• Battle Couple: She and Zidane become a couple in time for the end-game of their quest to save the world..
• Big Sister Instinct: Usually to Vivi in earlier Disc 1, most notably when comforting him in the Cargo Ship after Black Waltz No. 3 massacred other black mages, and in Disc 2, especially in Black Mage Village when she expresses concern at Vivi's confusion to other black mages' existence. Less so, and usually inverted, to Eiko as the latter tends to play the 'big sis' part despite being ten years younger.
• Blessed with Suck: Garnet's summoning powers were a serious liability in Disc 1 and part of Disc 2; not only did they result in Garnet being chased from one end of the Mist Continent to the other by Brahne's lackeys and almost being killed when her eidolons were forcibly removed, but the MP costs were so high that she couldn't even use them.
• Break the Cutie: The conflict with her mother, watching the destruction caused by her nation, and ultimately the destruction of her own queendom have all caused her so much trauma she turned mute for a while.
• Cassandra Truth: She'd spotted Kuja and suspected him of influencing Brahne's descent into madness well before the game's events, but nobody believed her.
• Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose: This is her victory pose if she's equipped with a rod. She spins the rod around and holds it behind her back while crossing one leg in front of the other, tilting her neck and smiling slightly.
• Death from Above: When in Trance, her eidolons remain behind her ready to attack again and again, no summon needed. So if she isn't used and her Trance meter stays up, expect lots of attacks.
• Deliberately Distressed Damsel: Attempts to invoke this in order to escape Alexandria by asking to be kidnapped. Unbeknownst to her, Tantalus was there to kidnap her anyway.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • At the very start of the game, when cornered, she looks Zidane in the eye, smiles, and jumps off the tower (holding onto a rope) to get away. Then, when he catches up, she turns things around and asks to be kidnapped.
  • Another important one is when she and Zidane are being chased by Steiner after she's asked to be kidnapped, all three find themselves on stage during the play and forced to improvise. Garnet doesn't even flinch and merely throws herself into the part, despite the fact that she's never performed in a play before, only read the exact performance many times in a book. This establishes early on that Garnet may lack experience in a lot of things, but she's VERY quick to adapt.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: The hair from her Important Haircut has grown back to its original length by the end of the game. This is both to show that time has passed and that she has grown into her new role as The High Queen.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Her orange jumpsuit that she wears for much of the game.
• Friend to Bugs: To oglops, at least. She gently picks one up in Dali without any revulsion, and only pretends to freak out after someone points out that most girls hate bugs. It helped that she has never seen one before and looks at it more with curiosity about something she never knew before leaving the castle.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • When confronted by Ramuh, she admits that she was afraid of the eidolons inside her. The reason the MP costs to summon them are so high is probably due to a mental block on her part. When she suffers her Heroic BSoD, she has a chance of freezing up in combat and not being able to do anything. It's also at this time that she's able to start relearning her summon spells and re-establishing her bond with them, which probably helps her cope with her pain^note The player can get Garnet to summon eidolons early in the game. If they use a cheat to boost her MP or simply through consistent levelling, her MP will be high enough to summon them. Though, given that the lowest MP cost for an eidolon (Shiva) is 94 at that point, you're better off waiting.
  • Similarly, all of her eidolons (most of whom are series staples that have been around since Final Fantasy III), when used in cutscenes, actually work as they do in battle. It's taken a step further when she seeks out an eidolon that will save her mother's naval fleet, only to find... Leviathan. The tidal-wave-summoning sea creature that would logically only serve to destroy a naval fleet.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: After Zidane states that they can't keep on calling her Garnet so as to not get caught, you get the option of renaming her. Canonically, she goes by Dagger, but there's nothing preventing you from naming her Garnet, which everyone accepts as if it were any different name.
• Girly Run: More like girly prance, which she does while holding her hands out to the side.
• The Glomp: It sees usage during the Grand Finale when Garnet dives on Zidane. It's a Call-Back to Zidane's Glomp Fail at the end of the Conde Petie wedding.
• Guilt Complex: Garnet's Fatal Flaw: she has a bad habit of blaming herself for a lot of the destruction and suffering that occurs throughout the game, even when no sane assessment of it would hold her responsible. This is especially apparent after Alexandria is destroyed and she falls into a Heroic BSoD. Her Character Development is centered around moving past this, with her symbolically shedding her guilt and sorrow in Disc 3 with an Important Haircut.
• Happily Adopted: Until Brahne turned evil she had a good relationship with her. However, she had no idea she was adopted until well into the game.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Garnet is well-known for her beauty, with several characters remarking on it and Baku even calling her the most beautiful woman in Alexandria.
• The Heart: She believes in diplomacy and working together, and initially she's the only girl in the group. At first, she's afraid to use her political connections and charisma, but they're what eventually unite the entire Mist Continent against Kuja.
• Heroic BSoD: After Alexandria's destruction. It's so severe that it renders her completely mute, and even interferes with her ability to use magic in battle.
• High-Class Gloves: Garnet wears a matching pair with her princess dress.
• The High Queen: Following Brahne's death she becomes the queen of Alexandria and is quite popular with her subjects.
• Hope Spot: During the battle between Brahne's fleet and Kuja at the Iifa Tree, Garnet races to find the eidolon that Eiko told her about in order to save her mother. Unfortunately, that eidolon turns out to be Leviathan, whose signature attack, creating large tidal waves, would only serve to destroy the fleet.
• Horned Humanoid: Like all summoners, she had one. It was removed to make her identical to the real Princess Garnet. This means she cannot speak directly to the Eidolons as Eiko did as that requires a horn, although she is able to still communicate her intentions regardless.
• Identical Stranger: The reason she was adopted into the Alexandria royal family was because of how she strongly resembles the real Princess Garnet who died.
• I Have Many Names: Goes by the nickname Dagger in an effort to keep a low profile. Her real name, as in the one she had before she was adopted into the Alexandria Royal Family, is Sarah.
• Important Haircut: After finally coming to terms with her grief, she cuts her hair to above shoulder-length, symbolically casting off her sorrow in the process.
• Improbable Weapon User: She favors rods, fittingly for The Medic. She can use rackets too.
• It's All My Fault: She blames herself for a lot of the destruction and suffering that occurs, even when no sane assessment of it would hold her responsible.
• Last of His Kind: She and Eiko are the only summoners left. Eiko was thrilled to find out she wasn't alone anymore.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Vicious Queen's Beautiful Daughter's in this case. She's adopted, but otherwise in keeping with the trope. She works against her parent and falls for the hero.
• Male Gaze: Her character model not only has a finely sculpted and pronounced butt, but the textures actually have "light" reflecting off her outfit in that spot. Coupled with most battle scenes and animations putting the camera behind the party, players will find their eyes drawn to her derriere by design. This becomes even more apparent after she cuts her hair, getting rid of the main obstruction between her backside and the camera.
• Meaningful Name: Twice over, with both her royal name and her birth name.
  • Garnet is the birth stone for January. Garnet's birthday is January 15.
  • Sarah means "princess" (lit. woman of high rank) in Hebrew.
• Ms. Fanservice: Despite her outfit being much more conservative than usual holders of this title in the series, the jumpsuit still emphasizes her hips, rear and groin, and her Trance form is straight Stripperiffic.
• Mystical Waif: She's not quite as mysterious as other examples, being that she lived in Alexandria as the princess all her life, but she fulfills the narrative purpose of starting the plot and possessing supernatural powers.
• Mythology Gag: Though as a princess she would go on to be named 'Garnet', her birth name is 'Sarah', a subtle reference to Princess Sarah, a character who appears in Final Fantasy and was subsequently referenced with another princess of the same name in Final Fantasy III.
• Oblivious Adoption: She had no idea she was adopted until a long time afterward.
• Painted-On Pants: Her outfit not only shows her general princess butt shape but seemingly rides up so high one has to wonder not only how she doesn't feel it between her glutes but if it can leave any rashes.
• Pimped-Out Dress: A grand, white dress that she wears whenever conducting princessly duties.
• Plucky Girl: A variant in that a lot of her pain is self-inflicted, and a large part of her character growth is realizing that not everything is her fault and she shouldn't put so much pressure on herself.
• Power Up Letdown: Her Trance is completely useless for the first half of the game. It powers up her summons, but she doesn't have any MP to call them yet (unless the player does an insane amount of level grinding).
• Rebellious Princess: Plotting your own kidnapping as part of a political maneuver against your mother the queen is certainly rebellious.
• The Red Mage: After regaining her summons and getting Eiko, she shifts more to this archetype than a traditional White Mage, including the Master of None connotations — being neither as efficient at magical damage as Vivi nor at healing as Eiko. With a racket equipped, she's also a decent physical attacker to boot, although nowhere near as good as Zidane, Freya, Amarant, or Steiner.
• Replacement Goldfish: For the original Princess, who died as an infant.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Deconstructed. Due to her taking her duties as a royal very seriously, Garnet wants to be this trope, but she has an unfortunate tendency to be responsible to a fault and try to do everything herself instead of relying on others: most notably, her choice to leave the party and travel back to Alexandria to try to reason with Brahne gets her captured and her eidolons extracted, forcing Zidane and the party to rescue her and giving Brahne a set of tools to wreak destruction on the Mist Continent with. In addition, her Guilt Complex causes her to be deeply hard on herself for the mistakes she makes, and even things that were outside of her control, causing her to have a Heroic BSoD in Disc 3 following Alexandria's destruction. Fortunately, her Character Development allows her to move past her guilt and blossom into a proper version of this trope, being a front-line fighter against Kuja in Disc 4, and the epilogue shows her having become The High Queen.
• Samaritan Syndrome: Once again, she puts far more pressure and blame on herself than anyone would reasonably expect her to.
• Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: Post-Important Haircut. While the game is heavily Medieval Fantasy, it still has prominent Steampunk elements.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Downplayed: Garnet is a famous beauty even when she's wearing her normal travelling outfit, but when she dresses up in a Pimped-Out Dress for her coronation as queen, the party is collectively enraptured by her, and Zidane in particular is rendered completely speechless.
• The Smart Girl: She has all the benefits of a royal education, including knowledge about many of the locales the party visits.
• Sole Survivor: Garnet is the only remaining survivor of Garland's attack on Madain Sari, as the others, Eiko's parents and grandfather, all passed away within five years.
• Stay in the Kitchen: She takes Zidane's refusal to let her join the scout party to Burmecia as this and is offended by it, causing her to leave the party in Lindblum (after drugging them) and trying to solve the problem on her own by talking to Brahne.
• Stripperific: Her Trance form◊ essentially turns her outfit into a one-piece swimsuit that shows off her cleavage and behind.
• Summon Magic: She has more summons than Eiko, but doesn't get to use them for a while.
• They Call Him "Sword": She chooses the name "Dagger" for herself when Zidane tells her they can't go around calling her "Garnet" everywhere.
• Took a Level in Cheerfulness: For about half the game, especially after some of the more tragic events, she's pretty dour and is rarely shown with a smile. After she deals with her grief, she sheds most of her worries and becomes more upbeat and determined.
• Tsundere: Initially, she's too naive to pick up on Zidane's flirting, but she becomes a Type B when she wises up about it, generally being pleasant towards him but both shooting him down when he hits on her and getting snippy when he hits on other girls. Even when they reunite at the end of the game, her response to seeing him again is to hurl herself onto him and then pound him in the chest.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Ugly Queen's Hot Daughter in this case. It may appear to be justified, as they aren't blood-related...except Garnet was specifically adopted due to being identical to the Queen's deceased daughter.
• Uptown Girl: She is a princess (later queen) and Zidane a thief.
• When She Smiles: She hardly smiles at all due to her being serious and worried all the time. When she finally overcomes her sorrows and doubts, she cuts her hair and gives a genuine smile.
• White Magician Girl: She fits the archetype with its focus on compassion and healing others and starts set as a White Mage, before she can use her summon magic. After that, she falls more under Red Mage. She even wears a White Mage hood early in the game.
• You Are in Command Now: Queen Brahme's death at the end of Disc 2 results in Garnet having to take the throne.

Freya Crescent

Despair: To be forgotten is worse than death.

Voiced by: Ai Orikasa (Japanese, Opera Omnia)

A Burmecian Dragon Knight, Freya left her homeland five years ago to search for her lost love, Sir Fratley, who set out to hone his skills but never returned. It was during these last few years that she met and befriended Zidane as she continued her search across the Mist Continent — eventually meeting him again in Lindblum during the Festival of the Hunt. However, when she learns that her kingdom is being invaded by an army of mages wearing "steeple-crowned hats," Freya returns to try and stop the invasion, with Zidane, Vivi, (and possibly Quina) accompanying her. However, it appears that the invading army is much more sinister than expected, prompting Freya to join Zidane's party in their search to uncover the truth...

---

• Aborted Arc: Her development and subplot with Fratley are largely dropped after Cleyra. While it does have a conclusion of sorts just prior to the end of the game, Freya herself expresses misgivings about both Burmecia's uncertain future and Fratley's affections, given his memory still hasn't properly returned.
• Action Girl: Your second female party member, and one of your primary heavy-hitters.
• Animal Motifs: Dragons feature in most of her attacks.
• Badass Longcoat: A long and red tattered coat that has weathered her travels and fighting.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: She's a humanoid mouse with clawed hands and feet, as such shoes would probably be impractical for her.
• Break the Cutie: First her kingdom is devastated. Then the man she loved and thought dead is alive but doesn't remember her. Then her kingdom's sister country Cleyra is destroyed. All this happens in short time one after the other.
• Bring My Red Jacket: Bear in mind that Freya goes through the most emotional injury.
• Can't Catch Up: Due to being out of the party for a good portion of the game, she (and Steiner) end up in the back of the pack in terms of levels.
• Characterization Marches On: Her introductory cutscene has her speaking rather casually while jokingly telling Zidane that she's gonna kick his butt after he calls her rat face. She begins speaking more eloquently as the game progresses and acts a lot more stoic with nary a joke (granted, this is all due to Burmecia and Cleyra getting destroyed and her inability to save those towns or her own people).
• Cherry Blossoms: She has an attack called "Cherry Blossom". It hits all opponents for damage and scatters petals all over the place. It's pretty much hitting all of the above-cited meanings - Freya's deadliness, her search for her first love, and her maturation.
• Deadpan Snarker: To Zidane, mainly.
  Zidane: "Let me get the final kill! I have a date on the line here!"
  Freya: "...You're ridiculous."
• Death from Above: When Freya goes into Trance, her Jump transforms into a barrage of spears cast from above, and she'll stay in the air until her gauge drops to zero. Essentially she gives free damage for several turns with no chance of being hurt.
• Demoted to Extra: Poor Freya's significance drops after the party leaves Cleyra mid-way through the second disc.
• Dragon Knight: She is actually called this rather then Dragoon as the job-class is typically translated in Final Fantasy.
• Dub Name Change: To Freija in the Spanish and Italian translations, Freia in the German translation, and Freyja in the French translation.
• Enemy Mine: Despite not forgiving Beatrix for her role in conquering Burmecia and Cleyra, Freya fights alongside her against the Bandersnatches as Zidane and Vivi escape with Dagger.
• The Faceless: Freya's face is mostly obscured by her hat. It can be seen in the ending FMV.
• Failure Knight: She failed to protect her country, and then tried and failed again to save her entire race.
• Femme Fatalons: Both her fingers and her nails are extremely long.
• Heartbroken Badass: This knight lost her true love long ago and is still looking for him by the time of her introduction.
• Heavy Equipment Class: The second of the two permanent party members capable of using heavy armour.
• Hidden Depths: During the scene at a Cleyra Cathedral, Freya is shown to be a pretty skilled dancer.
• In a Single Bound: Freya can jump high both in and out of combat.
• Javelin Thrower: Rather then coming down on enemies in a divebomb as usual for dragoons when doing jump, Freya instead throws her spear at enemies like this from the air. In Trance this is turned up where she will stay in the air and use the Spear ability and stay safely in the air while raining javelins down on enemies.
• Lady of War: She's calm, polite and dignified even when dealing with opponents and is an excellent warrior knight.
• Love Hurts: She has been searching for one Sir Fratley for much of her life, and what happens when she finally found him? He doesn't even remember her.
• Lunacy: Her Luna spell inflicts Berserk everyone on the field, forcing them to only use the attack command until it's cured or it wears off.
• Magic Knight: Her skillset is surprisingly magical for a Dragoon, complete with summoning magical cherry blossoms and spectral dragons.
• Mana Drain: Can steal enemy MP and restore the whole party's with White Draw.
• Maybe Ever After: Although she and Sir Fratley are together in her ending, she's seen expressing doubts as he still does not remember her. Notably, she doesn't return any of his affections physically or verbally.
• My Greatest Failure: Being too late to save Burmecia, her hometown.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Protecting Cleyra is her redemption for failing Burmecia. This does not work either, turning this entire arc into an impressive Trauma Conga Line for Freya.
• Mythology Gag: Reis' Wind, Kain's Lance.
• Random Effect Spell: Six Dragons, with the very helpful description if highlighted after pressing Select of "See for yourself." It can do a myriad of things to the party, from healing everyone entirely, down to reducing everyone's HP and/or MP to one.
• Rat Woman: Freya and her race are all anthropomorphic rats. Interestingly, they don't get the same treatment that giant rats get in other media, and are portrayed as quite noble.
• Shaping Your Attacks: She can create spectral dragons for several of her attacks such as Dragon's Breath, Dragon Crest and Cherry Blossom.
• Shout-Out: Reis' Wind is one for Trials of Mana. In that game, the character Riesz (for whom "Reis" was a valid translation of her name before her official localization in 2019) wields a lance like Freya does, and her kingdom is associated with wind and dragons. She also loses said kingdom over the course of the game (like how Freya loses Burmecia and Cleyra). And to complete the circle, "Freya" is the name of one of Riesz' summon spells.
• Statuesque Stunner: A little over 6'1 (187cm to be exact).
• Team Mom: Has shades of this in her interactions with Vivi in particular.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The first two discs are basically a big Trauma Conga Line for her and she's later left Out of Focus. The ending implies that she and Sir Fratley are together again, although even that has an overall bitter tinge to it.
• Trauma Conga Line: She loses her kingdom, the peaceful country Cleyra she was determined to protect after the refugees escaped from the invasion, and when she finally finds her love after being gone for so long, he doesn't remember her. Ouch.
• When She Smiles: In the ending FMV when Garnet and Zidane are reunited, her face can be seen in full and she's smiling happily.

Quina Quen

Indulgence: I do what I want! You have problem?

Voiced by: Kōki Miyata (Japanese, Opera Omnia)

An apprentice gourmand and blue mage dwelling in the marshes north of Lindblum. They belong to the Qu Clan, a race of chubby white-skinned beings with long pink tongues and a culture centred around cooking and eating. Quina joins Zidane's party as a means of learning more about the different cuisines of the world and honing their culinary skills. They don't really seem to take much notice of the larger struggle going on, but prove to be a faithful and helpful ally...most of the time, anyway.

---

• Acrofatic: You wouldn't expect someone of Quina's girth to be able to jump around like that.
• Alliterative Name: With Qs no less.
• Ambiguous Gender: To such an extent that the narration of the game itself refers to Quina as "him" and "s/he". If game mechanics are counted, gender-specific equipment leans toward male; on the other hand, certain translations use female pronouns. The Lamia's "Entrance" ability, which does not work on female party members, works on Quina. Also, Zidane will not protect Quina when equipped with the "Protect Girls" ability. One of the Steam achievements pokes fun at this with the "Femme Fatales?" title and requires you to have an all female party plus Quina.^note If Quina were female, it would give you a Gender-Equal Ensemble.
  • As of their appearance in Opera Omnia, Quina's pronouns have officially been changed to they/them.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Easily the biggest source of comic relief in the party, and is initially presented as being incompetent, but their Blue Magic is nothing to sneeze at.
• Big Eater: When they're not currently eating, they're complaining about being hungry.
• Cannibalism Superpower: They learn spells for their Blue Magic via eating monsters.
• Chef of Iron: Cooks and eats monsters on the battlefield.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Quina can be found in the Alexandria Castle's kitchens right at the beginning of the game when controlling Steiner.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Quina is...not all there, even at the best of times. For instance, they're very happy at marrying Vivi.
  "I...so happy..."
• Cutscene Incompetence: Quina is at first presented as hopelessly inept in catching frogs. Once the player takes over, that can change.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Frog Drop. Since it's a Fixed Damage Attack it can be powered up independently of Quina's level by playing the frog catching minigame. Potentially you could get it to hit the damage cap as soon as you obtain it, though that would require a whole lot of waiting for the frog pond to restock.
  • Also, Limit Glove. It can be learned as soon as Quina enters your party in Disc 1, costs 10 MP to use, and does 9999 damage, every time...as long as Quina's HP is 1 when you use it; otherwise it does nothing. Thankfully Quina has a spell to reduce any target's HP down to 1, including their own.
• Everyone Has Standards: Quina's 'Eat' ability doesn't work on humans, or enemies with human-level intelligence. So they are not a cannibal.
• Extreme Omnivore: The defining character trait of Qus in general. It's even a gameplay mechanic, as the way they learn their Blue Magic spells is eating a monster who knows the spell.
• The Fool: Quina has some inexplicably good survival skills; they manage to survive all of Cleyra being destroyed by apparently running down the trunk (though some other survivors pop up so clearly they weren't alone in this), and somehow swim all the way from the Outer Continent to Treno after falling in the sea.
• Fork Fencing: All of Quina's weapons are giant forks because they're a gourmand.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Downplayed: Quina doesn't have any close friends among the group, who mainly seem to tolerate them. When the group forms teams for the four shrines late in the game, Zidane ends up getting stuck with Quina, simply because he thinks pairing Steiner and Quina would be a bad idea. Despite this, some members of the group express positive feelings towards Quina: Zidane seems fond of them (albeit exasperatedly so), Vivi seems devastated when he thinks Quina perished in the destruction of Cleyra, and Freya (who, at the time, is preoccupied and worried about Burmecia) expresses admiration for Quina's live-in-the-moment mentality and feels like she could learn something from them.
• Funetik Aksent: As for the entire Qu race, they speak with Rome dialect in the Italian translation.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Quina's defining characteristic is being a Big Eater, and one of their abilities is to physically eat a weakened enemy to gain their abilities.
• Genius Ditz: Quina is generally pretty clueless, but they are a master chef, and surprisingly wise for such a carefree person. Notably when they give Eiko cooking advice, it's very useful.
• The Hedonist: To the point where the trait associated with their character quote is "indulgence": Quina thinks nothing about indulging their desire for food no matter the situation.
  I do what I want! You have problem?
• Improbable Weapon User: Quina's weapons are giant dinner forks.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Though Quina seems to be a self-centered hedonist most of the time they do show concern for their companions from time to time, such as consoling and offering to aid Freya as she entered her Doomed Hometown and assuring Vivi that, black mage or no, he's still human in the ways that count.
• Kick the Dog: Though it could be argued they're just too dumb to realize what they're doing, Quina expresses interest in eating both chocobo eggs and moogles, which is pretty harsh considering they're the Series Mascots. The chocobo egg is particularly mean as it's being cared for by Black Mages who tell them its mother died, but Quina is undeterred and considers the idea ridiculous.
• Lethal Joke Character: When you first get Quina, they have no usable skills, a random attack damage variable, and almost no purchasable weapons. Take the time to use them properly, and you can kill almost any enemy (and some bosses) in one turn. In The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, as you would expect, there are a lot of powerful enemies, but it turns out most of them are not immune to status ailments, so Quina's Mustard Bomb and Frost attacks become One-Hit KO moves for as little as 8 MP. Also Quina's Lvl. 5 Death spell is one of the fastest ways to kill Grand Dragons, the enemy best suited for leveling up in the endgame.
• Magikarp Power: As is typical for Blue Mages in the series, but Quina goes a step beyond it. Like other Blue Mages in the series (such as Strago and Quistis), Quina is at their best with a full set of spells. Unlike those two, Quina begins with no spells at all in their kit and a physical attack that gives random damage output, only making them useful as an Item Caddy at first. That said, training Quina into having a full arsenal rewards the player with one of the best Blue Mages in the series, as Quina now can function as a better healer than Garnet or Eiko, a damage dealer only rivaled by Zidane and Freya, the ability to hit elemental weaknesses with better efficiency than Vivi, and a combination buffer and debuffer that outshines Amarant.
• Manchild: Quina's age is apparently 89 but they have a very child-like attitude due to a sheltered upbringing.
• Older Than They Look: According to the game's Ultimania, s/he's 89. Though it's worth stating that it's specifically mentioned in-game that Quina is fairly young by Qu standards.
• Optional Party Member: In Disc 1. The game acknowledges if you recruit them before when you are required to go to Qu Marsh in Disc 2.
• Overly-Long Tongue: Like all the Qu Tribe, they have an enormous tongue which perpetually hangs out of their mouth.
• Plucky Comic Relief: If there is a gag to happen, like thinking a swirling pit of quicksand looks yummy, they will jump into it.
• Punny Name: Quina Quen is a Japanese play on words. Quina means 'to eat', Quen means 'cannot eat'.
• Running Gag:
  • Always on the lookout for new food to try. Even on Bran Bal, a village of Genomes on another planet, Quina's only interest is finding something to eat.
  • They also usually wind up being left behind and surviving any disaster.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If Quina participates in the defense of Cleyra, they will refuse to follow the rest of the party onto the telepod spheres because they don't like heights. When the rest of the party leaves Quina in Madain Sari while they go to the Iifa Tree, they are so offended that they simply decide to swim home.
• Supreme Chef: Quina makes delicious meals and is seen several times in a kitchen giving orders. They can also give some advice about cooking to Eiko, which makes her into a Supreme Chef herself.
• Too Dumb to Live: Quina is eternally clueless even when the towns around the party are being destroyed and the people are fleeing in terror, yet somehow they endure. Their ability to inexplicably survive any disaster and somehow turn up later is a Running Gag in and of itself.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Frogs. It's how Zidane gets them to join his cause.
• Useless Useful Spell: Quina's Limit Break is completely useless unless you're trying to learn blue magic. Their Eat skill turns into Cook, which allows them to eat a weakened enemy whose remaining HP is at 50% or less instead of the enemy need to be at 25% HP remaining. Cook serves more as a utility instead of supplement like Vivi's double casting his magic.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Quina has a peculiar knack for vanishing and reappearing at the oddest times. About halfway through Disc 2, they take off after Mog to try and eat her, briefly reappears to help Eiko cook, then vanishes again until Disc 3, where they somehow end up in Treno for a brief run-in with Eiko, then ends up washing up on the shores of Lindblum where they rejoin the party. There's also no telling how they survived Cleyra being blown up, but a short time later they're back in the marsh catching frogs. See Running Gag.
• You No Take Candle: Their speech pattern, as well as the other Qus.
  "I no can eat."

Eiko Carol

Solitude: I don't wanna be alone anymore...

Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto (Japanese, World Of Final Fantasy, Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia), Michaela Murphy (English , World Of Final Fantasy)

A six-year old girl living in the ruins of Madain Sari. She is apparently the last survivor of the village, with no one but the local moogles for company since the death of her grandfather. Often forced to steal food from the nearby village of Conde Petie to survive, she ends up bumping into Zidane and company while leaving the scene of the crime, and after escorting them back to Madain Sari, she decides to accompany them on their quest to stop Kuja. She develops a major crush on Zidane, and sees herself as Garnet's rival for his affections. Outwardly spunky and exuberant, Eiko is actually pretty lonely and is eager to make new friends.

---

• Action Girl: For such a young girl, she's a fairly powerful summoner.
• Anger Born of Worry: After recovering her pendant from the thieves in her village, Eiko gives Mog a scolding for running away and says something could have happened to her, but she's thankful that nothing did happen.
• Auto-Revive: As long as there are Phoenix Pinions in the inventory, Eiko will summon this Eidolon when she's knocked out, also reviving any other party members in the same condition.
• Badass Adorable: A tiny little girl with major magical power.
• Big Sister Mentor: Inverted in that Eiko functions as a Little Sister Mentor to Dagger. She gives Dagger valuable emotional support when the latter is suffering from her Heroic BSoD, such as by telling her not to feel ashamed that Vivi is dealing with his issues while she still needs time to deal with hers.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Growing up with moogles did little to help her social skills.
• The Chew Toy: Not as much as Vivi, but she does have a dangling-helplessly animation that gets reused quite a bit.
• Child Mage: Like Vivi, Eiko is a powerful wielder of magic despite her young age.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She has a crush on Zidane and is quick to pick up on his attraction to Garnet, so she sets about trying to win him for herself. She's overjoyed when Garnet becomes Queen of Alexandria, because it means they can't be together and she thinks she has a shot. Amusingly enough when Zidane saves Garnet from Alexander (and they hug affectionately) it cuts to a shot of Eiko looking very annoyed.
• Competence Zone: Eiko is far more capable than a six-year-old has any right to be. In fact, we can probably say that the competence zone is six, and that all the older characters in their teens are no longer in it.
• Crippling Overspecialization: She is a White Mage and a summoner - but Garnet has more summons and learns most of her White Magic spells. Ergo, a party of Eiko and Garnet can easily be seen as redundant.
• Friendly Rival: Despite thinking of Dagger as a rival for Zidane's love, Eiko still likes and gets along well with her.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Being Wise Beyond Her Years and the leader of the Moogles at Madain Sari, during segments where Zidane is not with the party (such as the Desert Place or the potentially final battle against Necron), Eiko has highest priority of leading the party.
• Genki Girl: She has a great deal of energy and is usually excited about something.
• Happily Adopted: By Cid and Hilda at the end of the game. Judging by the scene, she adopted them as her parents, and they went along with it.
• Horned Humanoid: She has a horn because she's a summoner.
• Improbable Age: While most Final Fantasy protagonists are teenagers or young adults, Eiko pushes the envelope very low by being only six, making her one of the youngest playable characters in the franchise (not taking into account beings with abnormal lifespans or created through unusual circumstances).
• Improbable Weapon User: While the catapult rackets she shares with Garnet are believable enough, she also uses magic flutes in battle. She doesn't even whack people with them; she just headbutts the enemy with her horn.
• I'm Not Afraid of You: When Zidane's not selected for the final battle, but Eiko is, she's the one to rally up the party, telling Necron (who is the embodiment of death) that she's not afraid of him.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: By Disc 4, Eiko has given up on trying to wedge between Zidane and Garnet, and instead becomes fixed on getting them both past their Cannot Spit It Out stage.
• Last of Her Kind: She is the last survivor of her village until Dagger realizes she came from there too.
• Lethal Chef: Implied to be this if cooking unsupervised. One option for cooking with her was to put an ooglop in the food.
  Mocho: "The last one you made tasted so bad I thought my pompom would fall off."
• Light 'em Up: Learns Holy.
• Little Miss Badass: She's six years old, and adorable, but do not piss her off, or she will summon a giant monster to annihilate you.
• Magic Music: When equipped with a flute, she casts her spells by playing it. It's mostly for aesthetics, as there's no gameplay changes if she wields a racket.
• Meaningful Name: In Japanese, her name means "prosperous child" which is certainly fitting after she becomes the regent of Lindbulm's daughter.
• Nude-Colored Clothes: Turns out it was a bad idea to put a six-year-old girl in tight, flesh-colored pants.
• Plucky Girl: At six years old she experienced the death of her only (known) family member and is still running the village with her moogles.
• Precocious Crush: On Zidane who is more than twice her age. While Zidane picks up on it, he never outright rejects her, but he also clearly isn't interested in her that way since she's just a child.
• Raised by Grandparents: Eiko's parents and siblings died and she was raised by her grandfather.
• Running Gag: Her back getting caught in things, causing her to dangle in the air. She even first meets the party because her overalls got caught on a branch by a cliff and Lani held her hostage by grabbing onto her wings.
• Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: Same as Garnet above, but with bangs. Though unlike Garnet, this is Eiko's hairstyle for the entire game.
• Signature Headgear: Her signature yellow ribbon, which some people notice while disregarding the horn.
• Squishy Wizard: Great summoning magic, and the best healer in the game, but her HP is the lowest among the party members.
• Summon Magic: She is a summoner.
• Tag Along Kid: She's the only child member of the party, not counting Vivi (who has an unusual aging cycle) and she's initially part of the group because of a crush on Zidane.
• Through His Stomach: Shortly after meeting him, she tries to woo Zidane by cooking him dinner. How well this goes depends on your choices.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Her Precocious Crush on Zidane. The issue isn't that it's innocent, it's serious, she actually pursues a romantic relationship with him and has the proper idea of how to woo a man — she cooks him a good meal, shows interest in his life, quotes romantic literature, and writes him a love letter (and even knows enough to get help from someone older and wiser than her with it). Her interest in him implicitly stems from being the last summoner after her grandfather died just the year prior, so she knows she's going to have to rebuild the tribe. Even so, she's six; she has no business pursuing a serious romantic relationship with as much skill and determination as she does.^note The game thankfully doesn't touch on the question of if Eiko is actually aware of the "physical" aspects of a relationship, possibly to keep her crush on Zidane from being too uncomfortable.
• Two First Names: Her last name is a common Englsh feminine name.
• Use Your Head: Her attack animation when equipped with a flute has her headbutt the enemy.
• White Mage: White Magic is her specialty, having a more potent set of spells and stats than Garnet, as she's more of a White Mage while Garnet's more of a Summoner. Even Eiko's Eidolons reflect this: Carbuncle grants various Status Buffs that are determined by Eiko's equipped accessory, Phoenix is a powerful revival spell plus multi-target fire damage, and Madeen is a multi-target Holy Hand Grenade.
• Wings Do Nothing: Downplayed, the only time she uses her wings is when she dodges attacks. But other than that, they don't really do much. Lani even held her hostage by grabbing onto her wings.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Eiko still has some growing up as far as maturity goes, but for a six-year old she is surprisingly intelligent and competent. Not only does she try to win Zidane's heart from Garnet as described above, but she lives with a band of moogles and organizes food raids from a nearby village, can handle fights with savage monsters, is well-versed in classic literature, is knowledgeable about the full history and culture of the summoner tribe, and is an effective summoner and mage. If Eiko is left in the Desert Palace when Kuja forces Zidane to split from the party, Eiko is the one who takes charge of the others to fight their way out, and she's the one Zidane asks to look after Garnet when she has her Heroic BSoD.

Amarant Coral

Arrogance: The only dependable thing about the future is uncertainty.

Voiced by: Shunsuke Sakuya (Japanese, Opera Omnia)

A bounty hunter hired by Queen Brahne to assassinate Vivi and retrieve Garnet's pendant. Amarant has a strange code of honor, which manifests when his partner on the job takes Eiko hostage to try and get the pendant back — prompting Amarant to betray his partner and force Zidane to duel him for the pendant. Shocked at being defeated yet spared, Amarant joins Zidane's quest in an attempt to understand his supposedly incomprehensible morality. At first, Amarant disdains Zidane's emphasis on teamwork, but later on, he comes to understand the benefits of cooperation.

---

• '90s Anti-Hero: Being a nice person is 'incompressible' to him as Zidane spares him. The tattoos, dreadlocks, less-practical claws and fashionable facial hair add to the 'cool' factor. Him saying 'Some call me the Flaming Amarant.' shows he doesn't mind being seen as this.
• Advertised Extra: He is the last person to join the heroes and doesn't have a personal stake in the quest other than a Worthy Opponent thing with Zidane that is only briefly touched on, yet he has plenty of official artwork and is even on the cover!
• Afro Asskicker: It's really a mass of dreads, but his in-game model looks more like an afro.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: For some reason, Amarant's skin is blue. Yoshitaka Amano depicts him with a more conventional skin color.
• Ambiguously Human: Amarant seems, in every way, like a normal human...except for the blue skin. It's possible he's part of a human subspecies of some kind like the summoners, but it's never made explicit in-game.
• Badass Boast: Introducing himself is arguably this with the lofty title he uses, given the origin of his name.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: He's naked in his Trance form, but not scandalous.
• Bounty Hunter: Hired by Brahne to track down Garnet's party.
• Brutal Honesty: He doesn't mince any words when he gives his thoughts on things.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He appears on a wanted poster in Treno near the start of disc 2, and joins near the end of that same disc.
• Combat Medic: Half of Amarant's special abilities center around hurting his enemies. The other half center around reviving his fallen allies, healing them, or allowing them to revive after they're knocked out. He's also the only warrior-type who can equip the Healer specialization, in which striking a character restores their HP. Plus, the fact that his Flair abilities don't technically count as magic make him an ideal character to take to the magic-blocking Oeilvert. Why does the guy who disdains teamwork have so many skills revolving around healing people? His Character Development involves getting over his Ineffectual Loner status. His abilities really would be more useful as part of a team.
• Comes Great Responsibility: When he confronts the Fire Guardian, Amarant realizes that he's been wasting his power by simply seeking out people to fight, instead of finding beneficial ways to use it.
• The Comically Serious: Eiko (unintentionally) uses him as her hired muscle when the gang travels to Treno. It's a pretty great sequence altogether.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Amarant's Curse inflicts a target with a elemental weakness. They're random, but can be used repeatedly to stack.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: He's a proud man and doesn't accept mercy gracefully. He would rather have had Zidane kill him when he lost their duel than receive mercy.
• The Dreaded: Despite having a price on his head, Amarant is completely at ease walking through Treno. Judging by Alleyway Jack's reaction, this is because all of Treno's thieves, bounty hunters, and lowlifes are too scared of him to try and claim the reward.
• Dub Name Change: He's called Salamander in the Japanese version, Tarask in the French version, and Mahagon in the German version.
• Duel Boss: Zidane has to fight him one-on-one.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even though he has been hired to defeat the party and get Dagger's pendant, he tells Lani that he doesn't work with "hostage-taking scumbags" when she kidnaps Eiko.
• The Faceless: There is maybe one good picture that shows his face in the entirety of FFIX's official artwork and even it is less than ideal. His Afro always hides his eyes, too.
• Fantasy Character Classes: Combination of the Monk and the Ninja, and despite the general versatility drop that usually accompanies Red Mage classes in a Final Fantasy game, Amarant's diverse uses just make him that much more viable as the other characters drift into Crippling Overspecialization.
• Friend to All Children: Implied. His interactions with Eiko are the most commonly cited, but he's also the first to comfort an motion sick Vivi while riding the experimental Hilda Garde 2.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: When he enters Trance, his Flair abilities can now target multiple enemies or party members. The latter reflects Amarant's new understanding of working as a team and understanding friendship.
• Heel–Face Turn: Introduced as a bounty hunter hired by the queen, he soon joins the heroes.
• Hidden Eyes: They're hidden by his hair or his posture.
• Honor Before Reason: He demands that Zidane kill him after losing a one-on-one duel, while he probably would have won if only he hadn't sent Lani away and threw away their hostage.
• Ineffectual Loner: Downplayed. He's presumably successful in his career because he's The Dreaded but in the game itself he works better in a team.
• I Work Alone: He tries to enforce this at Ipsen Castle by racing against Zidane. He beats him... but gets caught in a trap when he tries to leave the castle, leading Zidane to come rescue him.
• Jack of All Stats: Amarant is easily the most versatile member of the team, being a decent attacker with access to healing and magical attack skills, but his performance in these areas isn't quite as good as the more specialized characters. Not that it matters, since he's still one of the best characters in the game. His Chakra skill is one of the most useful skills, as it heals both HP and MP for a decent amount and Aura casts Regen and Auto-Life. The only drawback is that all of his skills are single target, except in Trance where they become all-target.
• Kamehame Hadoken: His No Mercy skill him blast a ball of energy with just one hand.
• Noble Demon: He may be a dreaded bounty hunter but he doesn't take hostages.
• Pet the Dog: Several.
  • When Amarant turns on Lani at the end of Disc 2, claiming that he refuses to work with "hostage-taking scumbags."
  • There's also his cute vignettes with Eiko in Treno and giving Vivi advice on how to avoid airsickness.
  • At one point, a Bounty Hunter tries to capture Eiko, thinking she might serve as a weakness to Amarant, his target. Amarant wasn't even present when he attempted (and failed) the stunt, so we're not sure of how Amarant would react.
• Power Fist: A few of his weapons are knuckledusters.
• The Power of Friendship: When Zidane risks his life to save Amarant for no personal gain, Amarant gets a better understanding of what friendship means, to the point the player even gets to see his victory pose. One of the running themes of the game is that characters who are going through emotional struggles or trauma will not enter their victory pose and maintain their battle stance all the way through the victory theme. Amarant starts off and stays that way up until this point.
• Red Baron: Introduces himself as the "Flaming Amarant" shortly after you name him.
• Rings of Death: Unlike most Final Fantasy ninjas, who throw shurikens at their enemies, Amarant throws chakrams instead.
• Self-Deprecation: When facing the Fire Guardian, he says she reminds him of a "loser" he once knew- namely, his past self. Freya immediately understands what Amarant is getting at.
• Too Many Belts: He not only wears a belt around his waist, but one each around his arms too. Oddly they're all too long with the excess length hanging down.
• Walking the Earth: Amarant's travelling at the end of the game, and he doesn't seem to mind.
• What the Hell, Hero?: He calls Zidane out on this in Terra after Zidane pushes everyone away when just hours ago, he was scolding Amarant for trying to be a tough guy loner.
• Wolverine Claws: The majority of his weapons are claws.

Villains

Brahne Raza Alexandros XVI

A face only a daughter could love.

"With this Dark Matter, I now hold the power to summon an eidolon. Now, I'll find out if Kuja's claims are true. Odin, come to me!"

The queen of Alexandria, one of the two superpowers of the Mist Continent, and Garnet's mother. Following the death of her husband and the arrival of a mysterious advisor at the palace, Brahne's behaviour has taken a turn for the unpleasant — which eventually transforms into a lust for power that sees her wage war against virtually every single nation on the Mist Continent.

---

• Action Politician: She may just be lounging for 90% of her screen-time, but she is lounging in her battle-ship perched directly over her invasion forces; And then front and center once she gains Garnet’s Eidolons.
• Adipose Regina: A bloated blue queen. If you ever see her walk, it will be a waddle.
• Alas, Poor Villain: In spite of all the atrocities she did, Garnet still loses her mother when she dies. Although it's a little played with. While Garnet is (understandably) saddened by her death, Vivi on the other hand feels sad for Garnet, not really for Brahne. However, she was certainly the victim of The Corruption thanks to the mists, so this trope still counts.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Her bright blue skin stands out.
• Arc Villain: For The Mist Continent, as she is introduced just after the tutorial stages and is the biggest bad available until the enigmatic Kuja makes his appearance.
• Asshole Victim: After everything she's done, she ends up being killed by Kuja after she betrays and tries to kill him. Averted, as both Garnet and the people of Alexandria still mourn for her, choosing to remember all the good Brahne did prior to her descent into madness, though Vivi believes she deserved it and only mourns for Garnet's sake.
• Big Bad Ensemble: She views herself and Kuja as this, believing that they are in an alliance of convenience and fully intending to kill him as a rival to her bid to Take Over the World once her power is cemented. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
• Big Bad Wannabe: She's a threat to the entire Mist Continent, and she certainly thinks that she holds superior power over Kuja, but it ultimately turns out that she was the Unwitting Pawn of Kuja's and Garland's plan all along. When she tries to get rid of Kuja, she gets killed.
• Brawn Hilda: Her character design was clearly inspired by this trope given her bloated figure and the horns in her headgear.
• Chekhov's Gunman: After being dispatched at the end of Disc 2, she returns in a sense on Disc 3, when Kuja reveals that her powerful spirit, which he has absorbed, was the key catalyst he needed to enter Trance.
• Cool Airship: The Red Rose, Brahne's luxury flagship. When it's not being used as a mobile observation post for Her Highness, it's being used to teleport black mages directly into combat zones.
• Death Equals Redemption: When she's dying on the beaches of the Outer Continent, Brahne realizes that she is finally free of the terrible greed that was driving her, and makes peace with Garnet before she dies.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Believed to be the main villain until Kuja removes her from the equation.
• Dying as Yourself: Finally manages to break free of her greed in the last moments before she dies.
• Evil Laugh: Bwahahaha!
• Evil Plan: Take Over the World out of sheer greed. Once she's stopped at the end of disc 2, peace returns to the Mist Continent until Kuja stirs things up again.
• Face–Heel Turn: She underwent one prior to the beginning of the game. Not everyone is aware of it until she attacks Burmecia.
• Fat Bitch: Her cruelty is rivalled only by her size. Kuja often derisively calls her the "elephant lady" while saying that he only gave her the power she needed to act on her selfish ambitions.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: She is a horrid and evil monarch if there was ever one. Interestingly, it's mostly subverted with her own subjects, as she treats them rather well even after she starts her Evil Plan. They are unaware of her Evil Plan and see her as The High Queen, due to her having been one of those before she went mad. Even after her death, her people still mourn her due to the justness she formerly had.
• Gonk: Brahne has blue skin, tiny black eyes, and a big purple nose.
• Good Parents: She obviously isn't one anymore, but Garnet mentions several times that Brahne and her husband were loving parents when she was a child (before the king's death). Brahne herself later reminisces that watching a play with Garnet and her husband was one of the last times she was truly happy.
• Happily Married: With her husband the King of Alexandria, before his death. It's implied he was also her Morality Chain. Garnet mentions that she started to act differently after his death.
• The High Queen: While she is undeniably evil during the events of the game and certainly lacks the beauty aspect, it's reflected that before her husband died and Kuja showed up, she was a fair and loved ruler. An NPC remarks that the wreath of roses on her grave shows the people of Alexandria will remember her fondly for those better days.
• Leitmotif: "Queen of the Abyss."
• The Lost Lenore: It's implied that grief over losing her husband is what allowed Kuja to start manipulating her.
• Made of Iron: Was attacked point blank by Bahamut's Megaflare, remained able and conscious enough to get to her ship's escape pod as it was sinking, and held on long enough to apologize to her daughter and pass the throne to her with her dying breath.
• More than Mind Control: Brahne's severe personality shift from kind and beloved ruler to greedy warmonger is implied to be due to a combination of her husband's death emotionally destabilizing her and Kuja's manipulations.
  Kuja: The war was my fault? No, no! Your mother wanted it! All I did was give her a little push!
• Not Herself: Garnet, Cid and Beatrix all note that, following her husband's death, Brahne became much more erratic, callous, and greedy.
• Obviously Evil: The vampiresque skin and mammoth size make players uncomfortable with trusting her. Played With in that this is presumably her natural appearance, but her evil-ness is a new trait.
• Offing the Offspring: She was planning to have Garnet killed for treason after she extracted the eidolons from her and had no further need for her, but Zidane manages to put a stop to it.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Brahne's biological daughter died ten years ago. When an identical stranger washed up on the castle's docks, Brahne and her husband adopted the girl as a Replacement Goldfish.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Brahne deserves special mention for showing up in person every time her army conquers another country and carrying out the Eidolon summoning herself. However, also unlike most other examples, this backfires when Kuja takes control of Bahamut and uses it to assassinate her. Maybe the other royals had the right idea after all.
• The Unfought: There is no boss battle with her in it.
• Ungrateful Bitch: She eagerly takes Cleyra's jewel from Beatrix without even thanking her. Despite her Blind Obedience to Brahne, Beatrix is offended.
  Beatrix: Not even a word of gratitude...
• Unwitting Pawn: Of Kuja, and by proxy Garland. Both of them used her war and greed to fulfill their own objectives.
• Walking Spoiler: Before the player has a grasp of the plot, it's clear that she is a major villain due to her appearance. This may have been intended to have been the disc 1 twist as well.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Planned to have Garnet executed after sapping all of her eidolons from her.
  • She also tries to pull this on Kuja after conquering the Mist Continent, but has the tables turned on her when Kuja takes control of Bahamut using the Invincible, and is disposed of herself.

Kuja

This is the face of a man with a plan.

"Peace is but a shadow of death, desperate to forget its painful past... Though we hope for promising years, after shedding a thousand tears, yesterday's sorrow constantly nears. And while the moon still shines blue, by dawn, it will turn to scarlet hue!"

Voiced by: Akira Ishida (Japanese , Dissidia series), JD Cullum (English, Dissidia series)

An effeminate, vain sorcerer who supplies Queen Brahne with Black Mages and summon magic, ostensibly only for the money. However, he is much more than he seems and is manipulating Brahne to help him with his own agenda.

---

• Agent Peacock: His clothes are outrageous, even for a Final Fantasy villain.
• All According to Plan: As noted below, nearly these exact words are his catchphrase. However, Kuja wasn't quite as in control as he thought...
• Anti-Villain: The Woobie variety; you'd be pretty messed up with that kind of backstory too.
• Arch-Enemy: To Zidane. Kuja is unable to see the value of anything but himself, while Zidane has a motto to help anyone who needs it.
• Arms Dealer: Provides Brahne with the means to create Black Mages and summon Eidolons. This lasts up until the end of the second disc, whereupon he kills Brahne and reveals that the whole thing was just an act to hide his true agenda.
• Barred from the Afterlife: Part of the reason Kuja has nothing to lose and everything to gain by attempting to conquer Gaia and Terra and being an archetypal villain. Quite simply, losing to Garland means he loses his life and his soul.
  "I need an eidolon more powerful than Alexander! An eidolon with the power to bury Garland! His powers are so incredible; I cannot even come close. I must destroy him before Terra's plan is activated, or my soul will no longer be my own! Who cares if she lives? I want that eidolon!"
• Big Bad: He is the power behind Brahne and the one stirring up all the game's conflict. Then you find out that he was just The Dragon to the real villain, Garland...right up until the end of disc three, when he backstabs Garland and becomes a real Big Bad.
• Born as an Adult: According to creation materials. This is the reason for Kuja's Psychopathic Manchild tendencies, and why Garland chose to have Zidane start as an infant: Zidane was able to grow and mature enough to enter Trance, while Kuja, who was created as an adult, could never develop past his initial thought process and thus never truly change.
• Cain and Abel: Cain to Zidane's Abel because he is the evil and treacherous son who tries to kill his brother and his father. However, Zidane isn't fond of Dad either.
• Camp Straight: Kuja has a lot of effeminate mannerisms (though he still uses the masculine pronoun "boku" in Japanese), but the only character he flirts with is Garnet.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Kuja is quite aware he's the villain of this tale and has no problem playing his part as such.
  Garnet: Don't you feel anything!? Taking the lives of so many...
  Kuja: Spare me the lecture. Lives come and go all the time. What's the big deal?
• Character Catchphrase: "Everything is going according to plan..."
• Character Development: With the possible exception of Golbez, who was actually Brainwashed and Crazy, Kuja has the distinction of being the first and only Final Fantasy Big Bad to undergo some personality changes and end up redeeming himself. Some FF villains, if they receive any development, usually grow worse as time passes, and in the case of Sephiroth, needed more than one game to develop.
• The Chessmaster: He's in control of many events early in the game, but later things start to get out of his hands. Fortunately for him, he plays a good game of Xanatos Speed Chess, so he still stays on top of things...up until the fourth disc, when he gives up on strategy altogether and descends into world-destroying lunacy.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: All of his business partners are only stepping stones to something bigger and he casts them aside when they are no longer needed. All of this is to betray his creator, Garland, who he is nominally working for.
• Composite Character: Kuja either imitates or mirrors every single one of the main villains of the Final Fantasy series in some way - fitting for a game designed as one giant Mythology Gag.
  • Both he and the original Garland from Final Fantasy kidnap a Princess named Sarah, as Sarah is Garnet's real name.
  • Both he and Emperor Mateus from Final Fantasy II kidnap a woman named Hilda and use a giant powerful airship.
  • Both he and Xande from Final Fantasy III throw a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum upon finding out that they are mortal.
  • Both he and Golbez from Final Fantasy IV are related to the protagonist of their respective games. They're also both from a different planet than the one the game starts on.
  • Both he and Exdeath from Final Fantasy V draw their powers from a tree made of souls.
  • Both he and Kefka from Final Fantasy VI start out as underlings of an Emperor/Queen, responsible for giving the powers that caused villainy to be begin with, who they eventually overthrow and murder. Kuja also kills Garland in the same way Kefka kills Emperor Gestahl - kicking them off a ledge a-la-Sparta. Their plans also involve using the powers of Eidolons.
  • Both he and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII use their protagonist as a MacGuffin Delivery Service. They are both also products of experimentation, although Kuja is far more "artificial" than Sephiroth as a whole. And, of course, they're both of the White Hair, Black Heart archetype.
  • Both he and Ultimecia from Final Fantasy VIII reside in a time distortion for their final battle. Ultimecia is found in her castle after time has been compressed, while Kuja is found in Memoria, which is a physical manifestation of the planet's memories.
  • Both he and Ultima from Final Fantasy Tactics have masterminded large scale conflicts between nations of the world in order to further their own plans.
• Cool Airship: Kuja is in possession of Regent Cid's prototype airship, the Hilda Garde, and uses it throughout Disc 3 to ferry both himself and his captives across Gaia.
• Dark Messiah: In contrast to Zidane's Anti-Anti-Christ. Mikoto stated that, although what Kuja did was wrong, he nonetheless brought hope for the Genomes in defying their original purpose and proving that their lives weren't meaningless at all.
• Death Trap: Employs this on the party when holding them captive in his Desert Palace. He didn't really care if they lived or died — it was just for the fun of it.
• Didn't See That Coming: Kuja's clever, smart, and powerful but he's not omniscient. He can plan for some elements like Queen Brahne turning on him because he knows of her greed, but extreme factors outside of what he thought could happen will catch him off guard. It's one of the reasons he's forced to display his skill at Xanatos Speed Chess. Of note, is the moment when Garland shows up in the Invincible and destroys Alexander (the single goal of Kuja's entire Evil Plan) moments before Kuja is about to enslave him.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Kuja is the last boss fight on Disc 3, and the sole opponent confronted between the game's POTN on Disc 4 and the True Final Boss.
• Dragon Rider: Uses a Silver Dragon as a mount. It actually belongs to Garland; following the Battle of Alexandria, Garland presumably revoked it because Kuja is never seen using it again. However, there's that Cool Airship back at his hangar.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Yes, despite the girly face, effeminate mannerisms and fashion style, he is in fact a he.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He admits out of her sight that Brahne disgusts him. However, given what sort of evil deeds Kuja himself is doing, it may be more about Brahne's physical appearance than her personality.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Zidane. Both are genomes and men of theater, but while Zidane is a lovable rogue with a heart of gold, whose motto in life is "Do you need a reason to help anyone?", Kuja is a selfish, vain individual that doesn't care about anyone but himself, using anyone as pawns for his plans.
  • He's also this to Vivi. Both are artificial beings who were made to invade other places and they both face the revelation that they're going to be dying much sooner than they anticipated. However, the physically childish Vivi chooses to give his life meaning by helping others with what little time he has left and leaving behind new life to continue his legacy while the older-looking Kuja snaps and decides the entire world is going down with him.
• Evil Feels Good: Rejecting the idea of being a tool created to serve and have no freedom of his own prompted Kuja to instead go toward the extreme opposite spectrum and develop a massive ego and selfish attitude. Further, he found that Garland was willing to overlook his many self-indulgences as long as Kuja used them to sow discord, death and disharmony. Kuja grew a taste for this type of thing very quickly and before long was more than willing to cast himself as a villain because it was something he was uniquely good at, something that brought him power and solace, and was also the purest way he could express himself.
• Evil Is Cool: Invoked. Kuja believes this trope utterly. As stated in game, all of his villainous theatrics hide the heart of a cruel and tortured soul. Acting like a Card-Carrying Villain is just an ego boost to make him feel smugly superior to everyone else.
• Evil Plan: He seems like a simple arms dealer for a queen, but in reality, he's using her to gather power for himself so he can overthrow his creator.
• Evil Redhead: When Kuja achieves Trance, his hair changes from white to blood red. The Ultimania guide claims that this is his real hair color.
• Faux Affably Evil: As poetic, sophisticated, and well-groomed as he seems to be, it is just an act to prove to himself and others that he's superior to normal people. In reality he's cruel, selfish, and cunning, and starts to show his true colors in Disc 3 when things don't go just as he wanted.
• The Fighting Narcissist: Kuja is not only handsome to the point of beauty, but he's perfectly aware of it and flaunts it. He's also a terrifically powerful mage who can kick the party's ass with ease and enjoys doing so to prove his superiority to them.
• Flawed Prototype: Subverted. Garland ultimately admits that Kuja is vastly more effective than he'd ever thought possible. It's still implied that due to Kuja being one of the first Genomes, his lifespan will ultimately be much shorter than those who come after him (such as Zidane).
• Freudian Excuse: Alright, picture this: You're one of an entire race of mindless Slave Mooks that were created only to follow orders and work without end, have zero individuality or self-awareness, and are easy to discard and replace. Oh, except you were given individuality by accident, so you're aware of how much this existence sucks. Fortunately, your Creator will let you keep your mind, but only if you prove that you're effective at killing as many people as possible. You're allowed total and complete freedom, and can amass as much wealth, power, and luxury as you choose, just as long as it's used to wipe out the entire population of the only world where that stuff matters. Also, keep in mind that even if you succeed at your job, you're going to be discarded and replaced while an even better version of you does what you couldn't. Oh, and when that happens, you won't get to have a soul anymore, as it will be cleansed and recycled for someone else to have long after you're gone. Even Zidane feels sympathy for him at the end, and says he might have done the same thing in his place.
• Genre Savvy: In his free time, Kuja is a big fan of literature and theater. He purposefully invokes villainous tropes (such as I Have Your Wife, MacGuffin Delivery Service, and I Lied), mentioning several times that he is carrying out his plans like acts of a play. And this works, allowing him to manipulate the heroes almost until the end.
• Hartman Hips: Rare male example; Kuja's outfit prominently emphasizes his hips.
• I Have Your Wife: When Kuja kidnaps the entire party to send Zidane on an errand, which leads directly to I Lied below.
• I Lied: As soon as Zidane's gone to fetch an artifact for him, he tries to kill the rest of the party anyway, just because it's more fun that way.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: The main reason Kuja acts like he's smarter and prettier and just better than other people is because he's deeply insecure over the fact he really isn't any of those things and is just a Flawed Prototype.
• It's All About Me: His primary justification for his omnicidal tendencies from the end of disc 3 onwards. Justified in-universe, as Kuja was created as a Manchild unable to process any emotion other than the basic Id and self-interest. Further, unlike the other characters, he has no hope of an afterlife and his soul and memories will be wiped clean for usage by another Genome if they don't just vanish entirely.
• Kick the Dog: He snaps at the sentient Black Mages that he doesn't care what their numbers are, showing no regard for their individuality and treating them the same as the mindless ones. Later, while trying to steal Eiko's eidolons, he's warned that the process might kill her- only for Kuja to demand that the extraction process continue; the same scene also features Kuja ordering Zorn and Thorn to kill Mog—a moogle—because she was in the way.
• Lack of Empathy: Considering the type of environment in which he was created and the purpose he was created for, it's no surprise that he never developed the ability to feel for others.
  "Spare me the lecture. Lives come and go all the time. What's the big deal?"
• Laughing Mad: His reaction immediately after Garland tells him that his lifespan is critically limited is hysteric laughter because it signals his mental breaking point.
• Limit Break: Becomes a major plot point halfway through the game. After he sees Mog transform into an Eidolon due to him wanting to protect Eiko, Kuja gets a "Eureka!" Moment where he realizes that it would be far easier to gain power by simply letting Zidane and his party beat the crap out of him than to try extracting Summon Magic from Eiko. Once Kuja enters Trance for the first time, he soundly defeats the party with his ultimate magic spell, Ultima.
  • As a Foil to Zidane, it is implied that FF9's equivalent of the Ultima spell that Kuja uses isn't a naturally learned spell, but a unique magic attack that's the latter's equivalent of Zidane's Dyne skill, Grand Lethal since it's only used by him in Trance.
• Made of Iron: For such a fancy and camp villain, Kuja is remarkably physically resiliant: getting caught in a blast from Bahamut does little more than give him a cut on his forehead. This may be a case of Gameplay and Story Integration, as Kuja's stats when fought as a boss a full disc later give him a boatload of HP (42,382 to be precise), far more than Bahamut could deplete.
• Manipulative Bastard: The problems of Disc 1 and 2 are all his manipulations, in particular that of Queen Brahne. All he did was prey on Brahne's greed and she does all the rest. Even after her death, he then sets his sights on Alexandria, knowing full well Garnet's not on his level. Despite Garland beating him to the punch on destroying Alexandria, Kuja still effectively vanquishes the four major kingdoms of the Mist Continent with very little effort. Even during Disc 3, he still manipulates the party into doing most of his dirty work for him. It's only after he becomes the most powerful entity in the setting that he takes action head-on, and shortly after, he loses his sanity and seeks to destroy reality while on a rage-induced tantrum.
• Meaningful Name:
  • In Hindu cosmology, Kuja is the name of Mars, the red planet, and means "born of the earth" — Terra, shown as a red planet, is Latin for earth. Mars is also the Roman god of war. All in all, Kuja's name reflects exactly what he is — a Genome created by Garland and Terra to create war and destruction on Gaia.
  • In Japanese, kujaku means "peacock." After seeing how he dresses, you shouldn't need help seeing how that one fits.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: After tanking a few blasts from Bahamut, Kuja smirks until he notices that he'd gotten a cut on his forehead...and then laughs, praising the dragon for managing to injure him slightly.
  Kuja: Blood? Ahahah! Bahamut...power, mobility...You are truly the best! You even hurt me...a little.
• Opportunistic Bastard: From Disc 3 onward. In the first two discs, Kuja had a true Evil Plan, but it gets foiled the second that his boss, Garland, decides that he has outlived his usefulness. Kuja then goes into hiding and, with his treachery revealed, has no choice but to acquire power any means he can. He tries a few things that also fail, before opportunity shines and one of the good guys taps into their Super Mode right in front of him. From that moment on, his plan is to let the heroes fight both him and Garland, and win, and then invoke his own Super Mode permanently. At that point, Kuja had everything he needed to take over the world...except time.
• Person of Mass Destruction: When armed with the power of Trance he is capable of bringing worlds to an end.
• Pet the Dog: Hilda mentions that despite his soul being full of hatred, Kuja was nothing but polite to her. He even tells her his plans without her ever asking.
• Pre-Final Boss: Trance Kuja is fought immediately before Necron. There is a small break between the battles, however it only serves to allow the player to tinker with their party before the final battle.
• Psychopathic Manchild: While his insanity doesn't manifest until the end of Disc 3, Kuja nonetheless is mentally a child pretending to be an adult. He puts on exaggerated efforts to seem sophisticated and intelligent to assert his individuality, is very narcissistic and selfish, and is prone to quickly losing his temper when he doesn't get his way. According to creation materials, this is why Garland created Zidane as a baby — he would be able to grow and mature in order to develop the complex emotions needed to enter Trance, while Kuja was created as an adult and never matured emotionally beyond the young mindsets of regular Genomes. This is the same reason he had to absorb Gaian souls to enter a Trance at the end of Disc 3, Kuja's emotional state is too simplistic to do it himself.
• Psycho Prototype: Inadvertently, to Zidane. When Kuja displayed a particularly strong will and Garland realized there might be a use for such a Genome, he purposefully created Zidane to be a more effective version of Kuja.
• Put Them All Out of My Misery: His main reason for deciding to destroy existence isn't just to destroy it for the sake of destroying it, but because he refuses to let the world exist if he can't be part of it.
• Recurring Boss: Kuja is fought at the end of the final two discs, and the second encounter comes prior to Necron.
• Redemption Equals Death: He saves the heroes from Necron, and Zidane later goes back to return the favor. When the Iifa Tree collapses around the two of them, Kuja pushes Zidane out of the way, presumably killing himself.
• Reveling in the New Form: In the finale of Disc 3, Kuja is able to attain the power of Trance and transforms at the end of his boss battle, becoming an eerily beautiful Humanoid Abomination covered in red feathers and blessed with even greater magical powers. Immediately glorying in his new state, he casually mops the floor with the player characters, then spends the next scene gloating over his magnificent new form and everything he plans to do with it.
• Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness: He is securely locked at "High" for the majority of the story. He has a large number of wins, and even when he loses and gets knocked down a rung or two, he still manages to recover quickly. At the end of the game, he shoots up to Infinite. Thanks to Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, even when the player wins a battle against him, one Ultima later and the party is defeated anyway. He even manages to damage the Original Crystal, as per his original intent. The only reason he fails to destroy everything is because he had no idea that Necron existed and needed to destroy reality himself in order for Crystal to truly be undone. In short, Kuja manages to execute every single goal he strove for in the story, and is only stopped at the very end when he's too insane to care about strategy anymore (which the heroes had no part in causing).
• Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: He actually reaches every single tier at some point within the plot. Kuja starts as a personal foe (for Garnet), becomes a city-scale threat (manipulating the queen), then a province-level threat (commanding an army of Black Mages), then a country-level threat (attacking Alexandria with Eidolons), then for a while he becomes a personal-level threat again (kidnapping the party), then he shoots all the way up to global (attempts to conquer Terra and Gaea), then multiplanetary/galactic (blasts Terra off the map), then multiversal (tries to destroy the Original Crystal).
• The Social Darwinist: Given Garland's intended use for him it's easy to see how he developed this mindset. The only reason why Kuja wasn't put down the moment he showed signs of instability was because Garland believed that he might be useful — at least until a stronger Genome was available to replace him, whereupon he'd simply be disposed of. Thus, gaining power strong enough to overpower that hypothetical genome and eventually overthrow Garland was the only way for Kuja to ensure his survival.
  "The weak lose their freedom to the strong. Such is the way of the strong. And it is the providence of nature that only the strong survive."
• The Starscream: He works as a pointman for Garland on Terra to prepare for his creator's evil plan. Then he betrayed him at the first opportunity.
• Stripperific: The guy wears a steel thong. Being related to Zidane and other Genomes, fans would often joke, "Where would he hide his tail?" More justified than usual since he believed himself to be immortal, and thus had no need for more protective clothing.
• Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum: Emphasis on the temper tantrum part, given his incredibly childish and selfish motivation for deciding to do this. It's basically like this: "Waahh! I don't get to live forever! I wanna live forever! The world doesn't get to live at all if I can't get to live forever!"
• Super Mode: He absorbs the captive Gaian souls on the Invincible so he can use their negative emotions to enter a Trance of his own. It's so strong it lasts the whole rest of the game.
• Terms of Endangerment: He's constantly using pet names for people even as he attacks them or is plotting against them. Brahne is "the elephant lady", Garnet is "[his] canary", and so forth.
• Villainous Breakdown: When he finds out that he has a limited lifespan he stops pretending to be sophisticated and composed and just grabs power and wrecks stuff. Doesn't help that Garland basically called him worthless and he realized, to him, he was just like the Black Mages he previously spent mocking and abusing.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Young, long white hair, and evil in a suave, cultured sort of way. The Ultimania guide implies that Kuja dyed his hair white to distance himself from his origins.
• Wicked Cultured: Lives in a beautifully sculpted palace of marble and stained glass, and he's a fan of Lord Avon's plays to boot. He also imprisons people in his palace and puts them in death traps.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: His messed up childhood is the reason he goes all omnicidal.
• Would Hurt a Child: He plans on extracting Eiko's Eidolons even if it kills her.
• Xanatos Gambit: Once Kuja discovers the power of Trance, he forms a plan for it. With Garland out of the way, Kuja attacks Zidane to provoke him in fighting back. Should Kuja manage to win the fight, Zidane is defeated and Kuja would get his revenge. If Kuja loses, he gets the power of Trance to annihilate Zidane and his friends anyway. Once he finds out about his limited lifespan, he doesn't take the news well.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Kuja is a master at this, which is rather rare compared to some less-active villains of FF-series tradition. Garland knew Kuja was going to betray him a long time ago, and took steps to prepare for it. This surprises and scares the hell out of Kuja when he realizes it, and he has to completely scrap his entire Evil Plan and start from scratch. He then revises it again when presented with a Spanner in the Works in the form of a little moogle.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Kuja was made powerful, yes, but also immature; the entire reason Garland kept him around was to sustain the flow of souls from Gaia to Terra, and that Kuja was doomed to die an early death if Garland doesn't kill him first. Garland explicitly states that he's a stopgap for the next model (Zidane) and nothing more. This is the core of Kuja's Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: He steals the countless souls stored in The Invincible to achieve Trance and gain the power to defeat Garland. Kuja however claims that the souls were more than happy to empower him to get payback against Garland, and let him take them willingly although that's just Kuja's word.

Garland

"To live is to give life meaning, yet one must take others' lives to survive...Terra's souls will sleep until they forget such nonsense. They will begin a new life in a new dimension. It's a world in which life and death become one...That is the dimension in which we are meant to live, as beings that transcend life and death!"

A powerful warlock ruling over the ancient planet of Terra from his research facility in Castle Pandemonium. He was left behind by the now-extinct Terran civilization to guard their souls and find a way of restoring them to life.

---

• Ambiguously Human: It's not entirely clear whether Garland is a magical android created by the Terrans, the first Genome, or one of the Terrans themselves. He mentions being "created" to deal with Terra's problems, but Zidane also asks him why he isn't asleep with the rest of the Terrans. That said, even if he is a Terran android or a Genome they created, he most likely shares the Terrans' mentality and outlook on life.
• Ancient Keeper: Of Terra's souls and civilization. He's the one watching them and he's been doing it for a loooonngggg time.
• Anti-Villain: He just wants to do what he must to save his civilization. It's just that doing so demands he destroy Gaia.
• The Assimilator: Garland's entire goal is to assimilate the soul-cycle of Gaia to restore Terra and its people, and it's implied that this isn't the first planet he's attacked, either.
• Badass Cape: Garland's outfit includes a billowing black cape, which whirls dramatically as he moves.
• Bald of Evil: His beard is his only hair, otherwise he's fully bald. Presumably, that too, is due to his highly advanced age.
• Big Bad: Garland is one of the few villains who technically crosses the entire spectrum of Big Badness from the real deal to Big Bad Wannabe. He is introduced as a villainous competitor to Kuja, he turns out to have been his boss and the mastermind behind the events of the entire game and technically the Big Bad. Then, at the end of the third disc, having made the mistake of focusing all his attention on fighting Zidane and the others, he's blindsided, ousted from power and killed by Kuja.
• The Chessmaster: Like Kuja, he's a master strategist; much more impressively, he's behind the plot Kuja was operating in the first and second discs.
• Cool Airship: The Invincible, which Garland has used to destroy entire cities, and to convert Eidolons.
• Composite Character: While Kuja amalgamates the traits of main prominent villains from across the franchise, Garland has taken on the traits of many a Greater-Scope Villain:
  • Like Zemus, Garland is an alien in charge of a violent Assimilation Plot to restore the population of his home planets at the cost of another planet's natives.
  • Like Enuo, he is an evil and powerful old sorcerer whose power is contained in a tree of souls.
  • Like Emperor Gestahl, Garland is a ruler of a nation that uses the power of espers/eidolons for destruction and conquest and gets killed by his own psychotic underling.
  • Like Professor Hojo, Garland is a Mad Scientist who is responsible for creating both the hero and the main villain.
• Control Freak: As the appointed overseer of all Terra, Garland dominates every aspect of his creations' lives, forcing them into a very rigid routine of self-improvement and work in preparation for the time the Genomes can fulfill their purpose as vessels for the souls of Terra, and does not suffer disobedience gladly. In fact, the only reason why Kuja's activities on Gaia were permitted were because most of them benefited Garland in some way - until the battle of Alexandria. Similarly, once Zidane makes it clear that he can't be convinced to become his Angel of Death, Garland rips his soul out, intending to reduce him to another Genome vessel. Very little happens on Terra without Garland's knowledge - to the point that, in a rare moment of emotion at the end of the third disc, he triumphantly proclaims himself the absolute master of all Terra.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When using The Invincible, Garland usually only needs to fire one shot to win a battle. In the Battle of Alexandria, he fired two — the first to kill Alexander, the second to destroy the entire city.
• Dead Person Conversation: Returns from the grave to hold one of these in the fourth disc.
• Death Equals Redemption: After being killed by Kuja, Garland returns as a spirit to assist Zidane through Memoria. He isn't so much redeemed, as his goals simply line up with Zidane's since he doesn't want to see reality unmade. It's pretty clear he still has no problem with anything he actually did, and really just wishes he had done it better.
• Death from Above: His modus operandi via The Invincible for dealing with troublesome enemies and rebellious pawns is aerial bombardment.
• Defiant to the End: With his last breath, Garland coldly informs Kuja that his power is meaningless — and for once, Kuja has nothing to say.
• Disc-One Final Boss: If it weren't for the existence of a fourth disc, it would've been rather easy to mistake the fight against Garland for the Final Boss, or at least one of the final bosses in the game.
• Emperor Scientist: He's the de facto King of Terra, and has successfully created an entire species of soulless vessels for the Terrans to inhabit, three soul-bearing operatives to do his bidding, and the Iifa tree.
• Evil Old Folks: The oldest character of the game is also the most diabolical, though Kuja is his competition. He's planning to systematically destroy Gaia's souls so Terra's souls can take their place.
• Evil Plan: This is the true evil plan; the one that starts and guides the conflict. He created Kuja, who, at Garland's behest, encouraged Brahne to pursue her desire for conquest. He gave Kuja the materials to produce magical weaponry, which he would then sell to Brahne — resulting in greater destruction and further casualties in the war across the Mist Continent. He created Zidane, our hero, to ultimately oppose and replace Kuja. All of this was supposed to cause enough death to assimilate Gaia's souls into Terra, so his own civilization could live again.
• Evil Speech Of Evil: In his very first scene (see Not My Driver), it is made very clear that the new villain is here. It's delivered in grandiose fashion complete with terrifying musical accompaniment.
  "You have gone too far, Kuja. I granted you the freedom to do as you wish in Gaia for one purpose alone. Now that you have lost sight of your mission, I will no longer tolerate your actions. You have not the slightest idea whom you are defying. I will show you soon enough. You too, Zidane..."
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Following his death and Kuja's descent into madness, Garland joined forces with Zidane in order to help him save the universe.
• Evil Virtues: Dedication and humility. Garland is completely at peace with his purpose as a glorified steward for the Terrans and is calmly uncompromising on his plan to terraform Gaia into a new Terra. After being defeated, he acknowledges Zidane's strength, and lingers long enough to help save the universe before passing on, feeling content with how he lived his long life for that one purpose.
• Face Death with Dignity: In his final words, he explains as much about the Crystal as he can, before calmly bidding farewell to Zidane.
• Foil: To Kuja; both are powerful magicians, both make use of cool airships, both make use of the Silver Dragon; both have long-running schemes across the planet; both create living beings for their own mysterious purposes, and both have to deal with those beings becoming sentient and rebellious; both are inhabitants of Terra; both want to take over Gaia. However, where Kuja is a Large Ham who likes to behave as flamboyantly as possible, Garland is calm, composed, and rarely acts with any kind of drama; where Kuja is actively cruel and sadistic, Garland is simply pragmatic to the point of ignoring the suffering of others; where Kuja is relentlessly selfish, Garland acts only for the sleeping Terrans and has seemingly no desires of his own; where Kuja refuses to admit defeat even when he has nothing to gain except total destruction, Garland willingly aids Zidane in order to prevent the destruction of the universe.
• Giant Eye of Doom: The Invincible sports one of these on its underside as part of its Wave-Motion Gun, and it usually appears when Garland feels like casting magic on a massive scale.
• Graceful Loser: After being defeated, he gracefully acknowledges Zidane's strength. Also, after Kuja murders him and destroys Terra, Garland returns to assist Zidane on his journey through Memoria, even though Zidane's interference made said destruction possible. It's still a sensible move, considering that if Zidane had failed to make his way through Memoria, Kuja would have destroyed the entire universe.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He’s responsible for almost everything that has happened in IX. He was also responsible for creating both Zidane and Kuja and he was the one who manipulating Queen Brahne and her war.
• High Collar of Doom: Garland's collar almost rises over his head; that's the extent of his threat.
• I Regret Nothing: Just before his spirit finally passes on, Garland announces that even though he was created with only one purpose in mind, he doesn't regret having lived his life in pursuit of this goal.
• Kamehame Hadoken: Garland displays this with his Wave attack.
• Long Game: Garland's scheme has been in action for millennia, slowly assimilating the souls of Gaia without anyone ever noticing — up until Kuja got the attention of the heroes.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Technically speaking. He did create Zidane and Kuja after all. Plus, his dialogue indicates that he sees Zidane as something of a son, and not just a weapon — particularly when he's guiding them through Memoria.
• Mind over Matter: One of his magical specialities is to telekinetically lift an opponent into the air and slam them back into the ground — a spell possessed only by the psychic owl Zemzellett enemies.
• Mythology Gag: A living reference to the character of the same name from Final Fantasy. The offhand mention that he once tried "a more direct approach" to things makes it all the more obvious.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: In the event that a threat to his plans is discovered, Garland doesn't bother with scheming, trickery, death-traps, or gloating of any kind; he just has the threat eliminated as quickly as possible. For example, when the summoners of Madain Sari grew too powerful for him to tolerate, Garland carpet-bombed their village into dust; when Kuja tried to take control of the eidolon Alexander, Garland simply assumed control of the Invincible and destroyed Alexander with two shots, forcing Kuja into a humiliating defeat; finally, the moment he learned that Zidane would never willingly serve him, Garland just ripped his soul out.
• Not My Driver: Garland pulls one of these on Kuja when he tries to summon the Invincible during the Battle of Alexandria. Cue massive Oh, Crap! moment as Kuja realises that the airship isn't on autopilot anymore.
• Obviously Evil: He makes his introduction looking over the destruction of Alexandria, delivers an ominous and threatening monologue as his theme plays an Ominous Pipe Organ, and wears all black with a cape. It's obvious the moment he appears he's a new villain even if you didn't notice he was named after the main villain from the first game.
• Power Floats: While taking Zidane on a tour of Pandemonium, he casually hovers across the banks of machinery that Zidane has to climb over.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He only moves to advance his ultimate goal. Everything else, evil or otherwise, is irrelevant.
• Prophet Eyes: A brief glimpse of his face during the boss fight shows that Garland has these kind of eyes.
• Psychic Powers: Garland can use telepathy, teleportation and telekinesis.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He takes no pleasure in the chaos and death he’s responsible for. Reviving the Terrans is his primary function, and hijacking Gaea’s life-cycle is the most efficient method to do that.
• Shout-Out: His general look seems inspired by Darth Vader from Star Wars.
  • Functionally, he's similar in respects to FuSoYa from Final Fantasy IV, only where FuSoYa's methods in the integration of his kind on another planet are peaceful, Garland's are aggressive.
  • Fittingly, given how much inspiration Final Fantasy takes from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, his scheme and motives are reminiscent of the manga's main antagonist, the Crypt of Shuwa, a biological program designed by the old humans to purify the Earth from its polluted state. Ultimately, its goal was to cleanse the world, including all the new humans that adapted to it, so that old humanity could be reborn from stasis. Much like Nausicaä's Earth, Terra was a dying world that sought to assimilate Gaia so that its population could be reborn there. In both cases, the old world was wiped out (in this case, by Kuja), but the endings of both stories imply it was already too late to stop the terraforming process.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: Close to the end of the third disc, Zidane and the other three members of the group deliver a Patrick Stewart Speech to him; Garland then demands that they put their idealism to the test — and try to lecture him again when they're on the verge of death. He promptly sics the Silver Dragon on the four of them.
• Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains: The only reason he's antagonistic at all is because he's trying to revive his homeworld. Granted, he doesn't care how many other worlds or people have to die in order to accomplish this.
• Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: A multi-tiered menace, although not to the same extent as Kuja. He starts out as a city level threat in destroying Alexandria; then, when he finally reveals his plan for Terra to assimilate Gaia, he's revealed to be a global threat - though Mikoto implies that he may be a multi-planentary threat. Finally, in his attempts to remove Zidane's soul, he becomes a personal threat.
• Spirit Advisor: After his death, his spirit guides Zidane and company through most of Memoria, although only Zidane can hear him.
• The Stoic: His dialogue is generally calm and unemotional for most of the game; in fact, it's not until the end of the third disc that we even see him use an exclamation mark in his speech.
• Time Abyss: Garland's true age is uncertain, but it's known that he's been alive for more than five thousand years.
• Villain Teleportation: While talking to Zidane, he teleports around the area instead of walking.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Everything Garland does is ultimately to ensure the restoration of Terra and its people, no matter how many millions of innocent people have to die in order to accomplish this goal. He has no real desires of his own; the only thing he cares about is completing his mission and resurrecting his Terran masters...which arguably makes him as much of a puppet of the Terrans as the black mages and the Genomes.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: As soon as you're no longer useful for his plans, Garland will abandon and dispose of you. He even views Zidane as nothing more than a puppet to accomplish his goal, given that he eventually intended for Mikoto to replace Zidane.

Zorn and Thorn

^{Click to see their true form}

"We are in trouble!

Trouble are we in!"

Brahne's twin clown assistants. They seem to be potent, if short, magicians. Later in the game they become Kuja's servants after Brahne's death.

---

• The AI Is A Cheating Bastard: In their second fight, they will cast Virus on the entire party which makes it impossible to earn any experience on them whatsoever. Trying to cure it is pointless as doing so causes them to instantly reapply it. Only rare equipable items will protect you from it. It's implied that their natural form is somehow toxic to life itself.
• Creepy Twins: A couple of sinister jester twins. However, as Kuja says, they aren't actually twins.
• The Dividual: They are two halves of the same being.
• Expy:
  • Their Wonder Twin Powers are clear homage to Palom and Porom from Final Fantasy IV.
  • They can be considered as incompetent and less insane version of Kefka from Final Fantasy VI. They have clown-like appearance, serve an evil monarch, and have clown-ish leitmotif. Amusingly, while Kefka's One-Winged Angel form is more human-like, Zorn and Thorn's One-Winged Angel form is monstrous.
• Foreshadowing: They are red and blue jesters whose leitmotif is called "Jesters of the Moon" who eventually fuse together to fight the party. Turns out the reason the planet Gaia has two moons — one red, one blue — is because the red one belonged to the planet Terra and got brought along when the two planets fused together in the distant past.
• Fusion Dance: Technically, it's the inversion of this trope. Zorn and Thorn are two halves of the same being, and the boss Meltigemini is their true form.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: They show up at various points in the game to cause trouble for the heroes.
• Happy Harlequin Hat: They're never seen without their jester caps. Since their true form's heads are shaped like jester hats, they may be wearing them to maintain The Masquerade.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Apart from their respective red and blue outfits, the only way to tell them apart is their expressions and facial makeup.
• Magical Clown: They are two jesters who are also wizards and spymasters for Queen Brahne.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Zorn is German for anger, and Thorn alludes to suffering; on top of rhyming, these words represent their villainous status quite well.
  • The French version names them "Pile" and "Face", which can respectively mean "heads" and "tails", referring to the two sides of a coin; fitting, considering they're The Dividual.
  • Meltigemini comes from "gemini", which is Latin for "twins" and "melt" which describes the creature's appearance quite well.
• Mysterious Past: Where did Zorn and Thorn came from? How did they come to work under Queen Brahne? How did they split up from Meltigemini, and for what purpose? All good questions, all never answered.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: It's easy to take them lightly, until they turn into Meltigemini.
• Older Than They Look: Granted, it's hard to tell because of their thick face makeup, but would you believe that the Ultimania gives their age as being 88?
• Recurring Boss: Yes, even though the second time they're on the field, Eiko wipes the floor with them; followed by a Fusion Dance into their true form of Meltigemini.
• Strange-Syntax Speaker: Like Yoda, Thorn speaks.
• Theme Twin Naming: Zorn And Thorn.
• Verbal Tic: The two speak in antimetabole, with Zorn speaking normally and Thorn speaking in reverse order: it's not just an Identical Twin ID Tag, it's also a clue that they're two halves of the same being.
• Villainous Harlequin: Consistent villains that never take off their jester hats.
• Wonder Twin Powers: Presumably as a reference to how Porom and Palom of Final Fantasy IV worked together.

The Black Waltzes

A trio of powerful Black Mage prototypes sent to retrieve Garnet after she escapes Alexandria.

---

• Always Chaotic Evil: Every one of them is unapologetically evil.
• Ambiguous Gender: Black Waltz 2 has womanly hips and something of a bust, and the robe resembles a Pimped-Out Dress, but there's no evidence the Black Mages even have genders. Dagger however refers to Black Waltz 2 as a he.
• Artificial Human: Like all Black Mages they are artificial constructs.
• Breakout Character: Black Waltz 3 makes more cameo appearances in spin-off games than the other two.
• The Brute: Black Waltz 1 is a moderate rank and power mook sent to stomp on his boss's enemies.
• Dual Boss: Black Waltz 1 is fought with Zidane only, but that doesn't stop him from summoning his "pet" to help.
• Elite Mooks: A waltz is much more powerful than a standard mage.
• Evil Counterpart: To Vivi given that their specs are higher than standard mages and they have polar opposite motivations.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: While each is capable of casting multiple elements, each of the Black Mages is more proficient with a different one of these.
  • Black Waltz 1 shows a large affinity with Ice, confronting the party in Ice Cavern, summoning a giant ice creature, and using Blizzard magic for offense and healing.
  • Black Waltz 2 leans towards Fire, typically casting Fira at fixed portions of the fight despite being proficient with all three elements of -ra magic.
  • Black Waltz 3 displays a preference for Lightning. In all FMVs he features in, 3 uses Thundara to attack. He also only AOE casts Thundara, having a particular phase of his boss fight dedicated to doing so. Oddly averted after he's broken, where he seems to have respecialized to ice magic, picking up Freeze and ditching Thundara outright.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Black Waltz 2 will never attack Garnet, since his orders are to capture her. If she's the only party member left standing for too long, he will put her to sleep, resulting in a Non-Standard Game Over.
  • Combined with Logic Bomb in the final encounter with Black Waltz 3; It was told to capture Garnet without harming her, but is stuck in the mindset that it exists only to kill. Thus, when its only opponent left is Garnet, Black Waltz 3 begins beating itself to death in confusion.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: They all have dark blue and black feathered wings.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: As Black Waltz 3 is chasing the heroes, he charges a Thunder spell to get rid of them. Unfortunately for him, the zaps of energy from the spell make the engine of his ship catch fire, causing it to explode. Despite not having a face, he manages to pull off an excellent Oh, Crap! face when he realizes he screwed himself over.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Inverted with the second fight against Black Waltz 3. It will never attack Garnet, but unlike Black Waltz 2, rather then putting her to sleep, Black Waltz 3 will just attack itself if the rest of the party is defeated, leading to his own defeat.
• An Ice Person: Black Waltz 1 uses Blizzard magic to attack and to heal his Sealion summon, which itself is a giant familiar made of ice.
• Implacable Man: Black Waltz 3 could be considered Final Fantasy's equivalent of the Nemesis. It follows the heroes no matter where they go.
• Improbable Power Discrepancy: While the Black Waltzes are canonically elite mooks, in battle, their stats are actually weaker than the Black Mage mooks the heroes fight later on.
• Kick the Dog: Black Waltz 3 callously and casually slaughters a group of his fellow Black Mages to get to the party. Vivi was enraged by this.
• Knight of Cerebus: The game starts off pretty lighthearted, then Black Waltz 3 slaughters a group of Black Mages trying to protect Vivi. Things just get darker from there.
• Made of Iron: Black Waltz 3 survives an airship crash and being hit by a tram car, and keeps ticking.
• Madness Mantra:
  Black Waltz 3: "I exist only to kill! I exist only to kill! I exist only to kill! I exist only to kill...!"
• Meaningful Name: Waltz, a three step dance, indicated from the start how many of them there are. This is lampshaded by Zidane when Steiner wonders how many there are.
• Mirror Boss: Black Waltz 2 copies Vivi's spells, taunting him beforehand each time.
• Not Quite Dead: Black Waltz 3 returns one more time in disc 2.
• Obviously Evil: They look like demons.
• Oh, Crap!: Black Waltz 3 gives a beautiful one in South gate. It has to be seen to be believed. This is without having voice acting or, yes, a face.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Black Waltz 2, which is so long that his feet are never seen.
• Playing with Fire: While not as noticeable as the other Black Waltz's elemental preferences, Black Waltz 2's most powerful and common attack is Fira, the first time you see that spell, and the only time for a while.
• Power Floats: Black Waltz 2 never touches the ground until you beat him, of course.
• Psycho Electro: Black Waltz 3 loves to kill things with lightning.
• Rasputinian Death: It takes a lot more than a single boss fight to kill Black Waltz 3. There's also a Cutscene-Max power Trance Vivi blasting him and an airship crashing.
• Robo Speak: Black Waltz 3 breaks out the Madness Mantra after his breakdown.
• Rule of Three: Lampshaded after the first fight with No. 3 — when Steiner wonders how many Waltzes there are, Zidane points out that because of Meaningful Name being in effect, there aren't any more.
• Starter Villain: The heroes fight them in disc 1 after escaping the Evil Forest; the first major foes.
• Villainous Breakdown: Black Waltz 3 goes nuts after the fight with it, repeating "I exist only to kill" over and over as he tries to kill the party.
• Winged Humanoid: All three have black feathered wings.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: It's implied that one of the reasons behind Black Waltz 3's breakdown is that his magical power became too much for him to handle.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl:
  • Black Waltz 2 will never attack Dagger, since its orders are to capture her. However, he will cast Hypnotize on her if she's the only party member left standing, ending the battle in a Game Over.
  • Played Straight with Black Waltz 3, who will attack himself if Garnet is the only party member left standing.
• You Are Number 6: In this case, number 1, 2 and 3. They're just artificial people after all. Minor weapons that move.

Lani

"I'm sure you didn't hire me for my manners."

Hired by Queen Brahne at the same time as Amarant, Lani would end up walking a different path when she found her methods disagreeable.

---

• Ambiguously Brown: It's not clear with ethnicity her dark skin is meant to be from.
• Badasses Wear Bandanas: She wears a large bandana around her hair when bounty hunting.
• Badass Normal: She appears to be a normal human with limited magic and is just really good with an axe.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: It's implied that a combination of horror at watching the Alexandrian fleet destroyed and kindness on the part of the Moogles brought about a Heel–Face Turn.
• Boisterous Bruiser: She wields an axe and is quite happy with combat. Before her name is known, she's even described as 'Boisterous Woman'.
• Chekhov's Gunman: She is mentioned as a contestant in the Festival of the Hunt. You can also read a comment card from her at the Lindblum Hotel.
• Cleavage Window: Her outfit really shows off her breasts and cleavage.
• Companion Cube: "My axe is pleased to hear this."
• Enemy Scan: Lani is one of the rare enemies in the Final Fantasy series who will use Scan on your party. She changes her tactics after seeing info on a party member she scanned.
• Fiery Redhead: She's got red hair and is very enthusiastic about being a bounty hunter, she especially loves combat.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: As she's tasked with bringing Garnet back, that's who she directs all her attacks at in the boss battle. If Garnet is down, she instead focuses on Vivi, since assassinating him is her secondary objective.
• Heel Realization: After Brahne's attack on the Iifa Tree she recognizes how selfish she has been.
• Irony: Her written complaint in the Lindblum Hotel guestbook is primarily about how annoying she found the Save Point moogle in her room to be. She ends up going through a Heel–Face Turn because she was rescued by the moogles of Madain Sari.
• Maybe Ever After: She appears in the ending sequence attempting to reconcile with Amarant.
• Mini Dress Of Power: Fights in a top and short skirt.
• Ms. Fanservice: With large breasts, cleavage, and bared midriff.
• Not in the Face!: If you physically attack her, she will snap and scream "what do you think you're doing!"
• Pretty in Mink: Her skirt is trimmed with white fur.
• Redemption Earns Life: After the end of Disc 2, she gives up on hunting down the party and just sort of hangs out at Madain Sari since there's no money in it for her anymore.
• Villainous BSoD: If the player meets her back at Madain Sari from Disc 3/Part 3 onwards, or while doing the sidequest to learn Dagger's name, without Garnet nor Amarant in the party, she gives a rather big hint that the events at the Iifa Tree scarred her for life.
  Lani: I tried getting back to the Mist Continent, but Fossil Roo was blocked, and the Alexandrian Fleet was destroyed before my eyes. I became so weak after wandering around for days. Then the moogles here rescued me. That's when I realized I've been so selfish all my life...

Necron

"You stand before the final dimension, and I am the darkness of eternity..."

The Final Boss of the game, Necron is a dark being of immense power and symbolic (at best) relation to the plot. Kuja's actions at the end of the game awaken it, and it decides to purge all life from the universe.

---

• Ambiguous Gender: Being what it is, Necron is neither male nor female.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: It is essentially the living incarnation of the concept of death and despair. Its Japanese name emphasizes it is more an idea than an actual living being.
• As Long as There Is Evil: It is an abstract concept; a fundamental part of reality. It's impossible to truly kill it.
• Dub Name Change: Its Japanese name was the Darkness of Eternity. He's called "Darkness" in most others versions.
• Eldritch Abomination: It is a towering statue in the shape of a massive humanoid with strange limbs, otherworldly powers, and dwells in a dimension on the cusp of death.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Necron has a mask-like face covered in oddly-shaped eye holes.
• Final Boss: The final challenge of the game.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Can cast Firaga, Blizzaga, and Thundaga.
• Flaming Meteor: Casts Meteor.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: One of the more notable examples in the genre. It doesn't show up until its boss fight at the very end of the game and after being defeated, it is never mentioned during the game's ending. Its main purpose in the game would appear to be thematic rather than direct plot connection.
• Graceful Loser: Necron doesn't really mind its defeat. After all, it is eternal.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Far more powerful than Kuja or Garland but it sits out the entire game until the end, and is not relevant to the Big Bad's Evil Plan.
• Healing Hands: Will sometimes heal itself with Curaga.
• In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: It was summoned in response to Kuja's attempts to destroy the Crystal, which served as the origin of all creation. This convinces it that all life ultimately exists for the sole purpose of dying, and that Kuja's actions prove that life desires to return to the "zero world" of nothingness.
• It Is Not Your Time: How the battle with him ends, though in a variation on this trope, he needed some convincing through force first.
• Light 'em Up: Can cast Holy.
• Living Statue: It takes the form of a gigantic stone bust of a muscular man with extra appendages. Only its claw-like arms and its wings move though, its central body is inanimate.
• Meaningful Name: Considering that "Necro" is part of its name, which is the Greek prefix for death.
• Multiarmed And Dangerous: Technically. It appears to have two rather ordinary looking arms, plus a second pair which are much larger and more monstrous looking. Except the two ordinary looking arms are not real, they're actually just stone carvings of arms.
• Omnicidal Maniac: As Necron itself says, "I exist for one purpose...To return everything back to the zero world, where there is no life and no crystal to give life."
• Signature Move: Grand Cross, which can inflict a huge number of status effects, including the really nasty ones like zombie, confusion, and petrification. It can also have the potential to reduce the party's HP to the single digits.

Other Characters

Tantalus

Clockwise from top left: Ruby, Marcus, Zenero & Benero, Baku, Blank, Cinna

A stage troupe on the surface, Tantalus is really a band of mercenaries, thieves and treasure-hunters. They are hired to stage the daring kidnap of Princess Garnet during their feature presentation of the world famous play "I Want To Be Your Canary".

---

• Abusive Parents: Played With. Baku beat Zidane when he was a child, as a punishment for running off in a futile search for his homeland. Zidane seems to hold no ill will towards Baku for it and in fact, he sounds fond of the memory when reciting it to Garnet. It's also heavily implied to be Anger Born of Worry.
• The Artful Dodger: Blank and Zidane, at the very least, are implied to have been cunning thieves in their younger days.
• Artificial Limbs: Benero and Zenero's hands are robotic.
• Badasses Wear Bandanas: Marcus wears a bandana that covers his eyes and can keep up with the party and even braves Evil Forest alone just to free Blank from being petrified.
• Blade Across The Shoulder: Blank does this in his battle stance.
• Blindfolded Vision: Blank wears a massive strip of thick cloth over his eyes, but still seems to see just fine.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Baku is big and loud, be it fighting or otherwise.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Most of the group, really.
  • Baku's a Drill Sergeant Nasty with a habit of attacking his crew (sometimes as part of unscheduled training sessions, other times because he's in a bad mood), but nobody can doubt his abilities as a leader — after all, he got Tantalus out of Evil Forest alive. Plus he holds back when he fights his crew.
  • Blank is terrified of Oglops, but he makes up for this phobia through his gifts in fighting, thieving, and potions-brewing.
  • Cinna is addicted to South Gate Bundt Cake, enjoys playing with dolls, and is insanely protective of his hammer, but he's also a very talented engineer.
  • Benero and Zenero are both just a tad dimwitted, but they're strong and capable enough to be kept around as Dumb Muscle.
  • Ruby is hilariously overenthusiastic, easily annoyed, and speaks with an accent unique to the setting, but — as the final scenes display — she's actually a good actor.
  • Finally, Zidane will flirt with anyone female and of age, but can lie, cheat, steal, and act better than any other member of Tantalus.
  • Marcus, by comparison, seems pretty normal.
• Butt-Monkey: Cinna exists to be humiliated. This is demonstrated in the first battle of the game, where he both deals less damage and takes more; he's useless.
  • Additionally, Steiner swatted Cinna aside as he was chasing Zidane and Garnet/Dagger and Cinna after eating so much South Gate Bundt Cake found himself running away from Baku's Super Tornado Tantalus Punch. Oh, and he was never shown doing any victory poses either in game. Did we mention that Zidane indirectly called Cinna ugly looking and him feeling irritated when being addressed as an uncle by Vivi?
• Cat Folk: Baku and some of the musicians are something like cats. Benero & Zenero resemble the blue tapirs.
• Companion Cube: Cinna is very attached to his hammer.
• Cool Ship: The Prima Vista, is both a ship and a mobile theater.
• Covered with Scars: Blank's entire body is a patchwork of stitchmarked scarring.
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Absolutely none of them are upset about the way their lives turned out, and they are gleefully flamboyant as performers and thieves both.
• The Danza: In-Universe example; Marcus, Blank, and Zidane go by those names in the play and in the game proper. It's possible that Baku named them after the characters in the play (see The Fagin below).
• Duel Boss: Baku fights Zidane one-on-one early in the game, making it one of the first battles fought without even a Guest-Star Party Member to back him up.
• Easily Forgiven: Zidane is permanently kicked out of Tantalus in disc 1, but later admits that "it isn't the first time I left." (We learn more about that in disc 2.)
• The Faceless: The Nero families' heads are always covered by their pig masks, and we never get to see what they look like under them.
• The Fagin: It's heavily implied that Baku is one of these. He is outright stated to have taken in Zidane and raised him to pickpocket, burgle, and perform classical theater with the best of them.
• Funetik Aksent: All of them sans Blank in the Italian dub. Each has a different one ^note  Sicilian for Baku, Spanish for Ruby, German for Marcus, Rome Dialect for Cinna, Sardinian for Zenero and Benero to highlight their nature as a colorful gang of misfits.
• Gentleman Thief: They're classically trained actor theives after all.Except for Ruby, who is, in fact, a woman.
• Girly Run: Ruby beats out Garnet for the prancing trope.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Blank, Marcus, and Cinna. Marcus serves as one for the longest of the three, being the only one to serve as one beyond Disc 1 as he takes Zidane's place while the party is split so the player can continue to steal items with Garnet's team.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Blank's assist in the Evil Forest leads him to be petrified. He throws Zidane the map when he realizes he won't get out.
• Hidden Eyes: Blank and Marcus, and some of those musicians.
• Homage:
  • Blank not only has Black Jack's scars, but even develops a cure for the seed-infection that hits Zidane and some others.
  • The musicians. Someone at Square obviously watched that ship movie.
• Joke Character: Cinna has awful stats to the point that even the first tutorial boss can take him out in a single hit.
• Lovable Rogue: Every mother's son (and daughter) of 'em are a quirky group of True Companions, who are also professional thieves.
• My Hero, Zero: Blank, in a way. Zero is "empty" which means it is "blank".
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Ruby's top is basically open all the way down to her waist.
• Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters: For a gang of thieves, they are on friendly terms with Lindblum's regency, hence why Cid entrusted the task of "kidnapping" Garnet to them. They even help rebuild the Lindblum theater district after the blitz!
• No Name Given: The musicians. (The box office guy in Alexandria mentions that Tantalus performs "with accompaniment by Lav Layderce," which could refer to the composer, the conductor, the whole band, anything.)
• Only Sane Man: Marcus, the only member who is not strange in some way.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Other than the swashbuckling kidnapping attempt that kicks off the game and the performance at the end, Tantalus doesn't really seem to do much in the way of thieving or performing. They mostly loiter around various towns and occasionally show up to be useful to their old buddy Zidane. Mostly justified throughout the game, as both personal and global events prevent them from doing their schtick, be it finding a cure for Blank's petrification, to Lindblum getting invaded, to helping repair the city, and accompanying Cid's fleet. The fact that they're back to at least performing at the end signals a return to normalcy in the world.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: They're a group of thieves who also pose as a theatre group and are all a little goofy in some way, Baku in particular.
• Real Men Wear Pink:
  • Pay close attention, Baku has a bright red bow in his hair.
  • The entire premise of Tantalus (gang of thieves) as a theater group.
• Running Gag: Baku sneezing loudly every time he appears and not in the well-known anime context of someone talking behind his back, just...so he can sneeze loudly every time he appears.
• Satisfied Street Rat: If any member of Tantalus starts telling you a fascinating sob story about their tragic childhood, stay alert and watch your wallet. These guys make no bones about loving their lifestyle.
• Scars Are Forever: Blank, and not just on his face. It's a dangerous line of work you know.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Played with. Although Marcus immediately ditches Steiner once they escape the castle rather than go help Garnet, that's because he's prioritizing saving Blank first. Once he's been cured of his pertrifiction Marcus immediately doubles back to the castle with Blank in tow despite Blank being weakened from just being cured telling him to move it because they need to save their buddy's (Zidane) girl. Although they're late to the actual rescue they make it back in time to cover Zidane's escape and, offscreen, manage to recover Steiner, Freya ,and Beatrix and carry them back to Lindblum.
• Shoo the Dog: Baku turns Zidane away in disc 3 because of his Heroic BSoD.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: All of them technically but while you can't unequip Cinna, and Blank's brief stint in the party is early in the game before you'd have anything particularly rare or useful to put on him, Marcus's turn in Disc 2 can have him potentially have the rare Mythril Sword (which you can buy but is no longer available in shops past a certain point in the game) or even rarer Blood Sword (which is a one of a kind sidequest reward) on him when he leaves the party. You have a brief period to unequip him before he goes, but if you don't know it's coming....
• Southern Belle: Ruby affects this in her accent and fashion sense despite there being no equivalent to the American Deep South in this game. Perhaps it's an artistic invention?
• Taken for Granite: Blank, after saving Zidane from suffering the same fate in the Evil Forest. Fortunately, Marcus and Cinna manage to find a way to return him and only him (as opposed to him and the rest of the forest and its monsters) to normal.
• Talking in Your Sleep: If you examine the Moogle's Flute key item (allows you to summon a save moogle on the world map) in the menu, you get a quotation from a character just like any other key item. In this case, the quotation is from Baku, and reads "Hey, let me touch that red...bonbon-lookin' thing on your head...Zzz..." =Baku sleeptalking=
• Tattooed Crook: Marcus, with Tron Lines on his arms, either fancies himself as one or used to be one for real.
• Team Dad: Baku is technically the father of the entire trope, sans blood, because he raised them.
• There Is Another: Played for laughs. Benero and Zenero meet up with a third twin, Genero, in disc 3. Which would, y'know, make them triplets. If you meet them as Zidane, you can challenge them to a Shell Game using themselves. Just before endgame, on Disc 4, there's a lesser known sidequest involving meeting every single one of their other family and relatives (and there are a lot).
• Tough Love: Baku will beat you cross-eyed if you try to sass him. Then you'll have a good guffaw together and he'll tell you he likes your spirit.
• True Companions: They are very much a foster family. After the Forest of Evil, their main activities are helping Zidane with his save the world business and also researching a cure for Blank's petrification.
• Vanity License Plate: Variant: the first FMV spends a lot of time around the Prima Vista's seated-mermaid bowsprit.

Beatrix

"I commend your courage, but I will show you no mercy."

Voiced by: Yuka Komatsu (Japanese, Opera Omnia)

The general of Alexandria's all-female armies, Beatrix is a fabled paladin who is feared and respected all throughout the continent. However, though fiercely loyal to her queen and almost as unquestioning as Steiner, she still has a honourable heart — enough to wonder if she's on the right side after the first few atrocities...

---

• Action Girl: Let's just say she more than lives up to her reputation as "a fabled paladin."
• Amazon Brigade: Inverted, because she isn't a commander of some small-ish non-gender-standard unit (that honor goes to Steiner). Alexandria is a nation where women are dominant, and thus Beatrix is the general of her all-female army.
• Anti-Villain: She's a dutiful general who serves her kingdom and her queen. Too bad that her queen has become a greedy conqueror...Beatrix leads the Alexandrian army during the invasions of Burmecia and Cleyra, but acts like a general invading another kingdom would. She doesn't revel in pointless acts of villainy and becomes unnerved after witnessing Brahne destroy Cleyra with an Eidolon even though the city was already defeated. Unsurprisingly, she pulls a Heel–Face Turn after she realizes that her queen has gone too far.
• Badass Boast: More than one and every time, it also counts as a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner.
  "I once killed a hundred knights single-handedly. To me, you two are nothing more than insects."
  "Let me shatter your delusions of grandeur."
• Battle Couple: With her fellow military commander Steiner in disc 3 after Love Letter Lunacy drew them together.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: She and Steiner ultimately ended up together depite their initially antagonistic relationship.
• Combat Medic: She's a dreaded swordfighter, but can also use healing spells.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Downplayed. Supplementary material states that back in the day, Steiner and her got along well until one of their sparring matches got out of hand. At that time, they were more or less equal in strength but Steiner accidentally hit her in the face, destroying her eye. It's implied that Steiner never really apologized for it because of his lack of social skills. As time went on, Beatrix grew much stronger than him and became a general while his underappreciated Knights of Pluto became a laughingstock. He grew unfathomably jealous and she never really forgave him for her eye. When they eventually wonder if they have feelings for each other, they are both flabbergasted and confused about how much they really care about each other.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Literally; the first fight against her concludes the game's first disc.
• Distaff Counterpart: To Steiner, in many ways; commander, honorbond, conflicted loyalties, sword using etc.
• The Dreaded: The terrified reaction of the Burmecian soldier who wanted to avenge his town is a good testimony of what her name means. Just finding out his enemy would be Beatrix was enough to stop the soldier in his tracks.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Upon finding out about the Queen's true evil nature and that she was merely used as her puppet all this time, she starts to have second thoughts about what she's done. She also objects to Brahne using the Black Mages in battle and blowing up Cleyra with Odin, insisting that the army was enough, and completely destroying Cleyra wasn't necessary.
• Eyepatch of Power: The loss of her eye marks her as dangerous not disabled.
• Flower Motifs: Something about a Rose — her leitmotif is "Rose of May," and there is a rose emblem emblazoned on the back of her uniform (though it's hard to notice because of her hair).
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Is known as the best warrior on the planet and boy does she back it up.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Has the special command "Seiken" (Holy Sword) in a game that otherwise lacks much Japanese flavoring.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Helping Garnet escape the castle, and again when the mist monsters attack Alexandria.
• Handicapped Badass: She is Alexandria's best warrior despite the loss of her right eye.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: It's impossible to truly beat her. Whenever her HP drops below a certain point, she'll activate one of her Seiken powers and knock your entire party's HP down to 1, ending the battle.
• Heel–Face Turn: Turns against the evil queen to help the heroes, after it's confirmed the queen tried to execute Garnet.
• Heel Realization: When the Queen orders her to kill Garnet, she realizes that the queen truly is as evil as she feared. Shortly before this, after Cleyra's destruction, Beatrix wonders if she has a will of her own.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Can use the powerful Holy spell once she's a temporary party member.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Every battle against her cannot be won.
• I Gave My Word: Her oath to protect Princess Garnet eventually helps prompt her Heel Realization and Heel–Face Turn.
• Invincible Villain: Before deciding to join Zidane's party in protecting Garnet, she was this for much of the game, considering she was still working for the blatantly evil queen and impossible to defeat during each encounter.
• Jiggle Physics: The PC version added a little bounce to her bosom whenever she claps her fist over her chest.
• The Juggernaut: She is a One-Woman Army that no number of knights, or the entire heroic party, can stop.
• Karma Houdini: Downplayed. Considering that she partook in the destructions of both Burmecia and Cleyra out of loyalty to Queen Brahne, she gets off rather lightly. However, those destructions were caused by the Black Mages and Brahne's eidolons, not by Beatrix or her soldiers. She is also genuinely sincere in her desire to repent for what she did in Brahne's service and even apologizes to Freya for her actions. Plus, agreeing to fight alongside Freya and Steiner against Zorn and Thorn's Bandersnatches results in Beatrix's first major defeat in the entire game, to the point that Blank reports that she was actually knocked unconscious and had to be rescued.
• Knight in Shining Armor: She always believed herself to be a heroic and loyal knight. She simply doesn't realize that she's not on the heroic side at first.
• Lady of War: She's a feminine gentlewoman who uses her sword with impeccable grace and poise as a renown warrior.
• Lawful Stupid: Initially, much like Steiner, she has "obey my queen" above "don't commit genocide." She gets over it a lot quicker than he does.
• Magic Knight: She mostly uses sword techniques during fights, but her brief moments as a Guest-Star Party Member show she also knows a few spells of White Magic.
• Mama Bear: To Garnet. When the Queen orders Garnet's execution, Beatrix goes so far as to change sides. Even after Garnet becomes Queen, Beatrix acts as her primary adviser and rules the nation in her stead while Garnet hunts down Kuja.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Shares this dilemma with Steiner. Like Steiner, she eventually realizes what Brahne has become and shifts loyalty to her daughter.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Shares this sentiment once she actually sees Garnet was put under a sleeping spell, confirming the Queen's actions to have her executed. Beatrix also realizes that her attacks against Burmecia and Cleyra were in the wrong and could have been prevented if she had questioned Brahne sooner.
• Mythology Gag: Shares a lot in common with Cecil Harvey and is likely a nod to the character. Like with Cecil, she is a paladin and swears to protect those she holds dear. She follows orders from the Queen without question and then starts to doubt her once she sees how genocidal she has become. After her Heel–Face Turn, she does everything she can to make amends for her actions.
• Noble Top Enforcer: Her official job description is "Protect the Queen"; what she usually does goes way beyond it.
• Not So Stoic: Quite the romantic, especially when it comes to love letters.
• Older Than They Look: Perhaps it's because the in-game sprite, but you are forgiven if you mistake her to be around the same age as Zidane or just a bit older, either in her late teens or early 20s. But she's actually 27 years old (and 28 during the ending).
• The Paladin: In true Final Fantasy tradition. She combines sword skills with white magic, and goes through a redemption arc in the course of the game.
• Parental Substitute: Alongside Steiner after Brahne is killed, as she's the gentle and calm maternal figure to the newly crowned Garnet who also acts as regent while the queen is off hunting Kuja.
• Pet the Dog: Her love and protective attitude towards Princess Garnet and Alexandria.
• Promoted to Playable: Beatrix was an NPC in the original game but becomes playable in other spinoffs such as Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius and Final Fantasy Record Keeper.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Her third win against Zidane and friends very nearly ends up as this; having defeated them as soundly as ever, she realizes almost too late that they were trying to rescue Princess Garnet, and has to use her powers to heal her and awaken her from the magically-induced coma - only just succeeding. Had the battle carried on any longer (for example, if Beatrix decided to finish Zidane and the others off), Garnet might have been beyond saving by the time Beatrix noticed her.
• Recurring Boss: Fought three times as a boss, none of which can be won.
• Redemption Demotion: Mostly downplayed. She doesn't have nearly as much HP as a guest party member compared to when you fight her, but she is still monstrously powerful. The same Shock ability that she can use to one-shot your party at level twenty or so (with nearly a thousand damage) will also one-shot the first enemy she fights when she's an ally (where it will do about 1900 damage).
• Sarcastic Devotee: The first sign that her loyalty is starting to falter arrives when she quite bitterly notices that the Queen shows her no gratitude for retrieving the Gem from Cleyra and favors the Black Mages and Eidolons over her number one general.
• Timed Mission: She always has two good equipment pieces to steal; the catch is getting them before she decides to deal out a Total Party Kill to end the battle.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Like Steiner, her dilemma is her moral code vs her oath of fealty. It also has the same solution: heroic princess > evil queen.
• White Magic: Has several white magic spells when she's a temporary party member and can also be seen using it to revive Garnet from the sleeping spell that Zorn and Thorn used on her.
• World's Best Warrior: When Beatrix is properly introduced in Burmecia, Freya remembers a conversation with Fratley in which he refers to Beatrix as the world's greatest swordswoman, with legends of her killing hundreds of soldiers all on her own. As her boss fights show, she's earned the reputation.
• Worthy Opponent: She's looking for one. In the end, she may not have had one after all.

Regent Cid Fabool IX

^{Click to see him as an oglop}

^{Click to see him as a frog}

"No amount of hardship can tear our two countries apart."

The monarch of Lindblum, the only country equal to Alexandria in strength, Cid is a peaceful but proactive ruler, well known for his industrial innovations and revolutionary airship designs. He hires the Tantalus bandits to kidnap Garnet, which leads directly to the beginning of the game.

---

• Almighty Janitor: an Invoked Trope. He's the current Tetra Master champion, but due to being an oglop at the time of the tournament in Treno, he has to ask an NPC to play for him (while giving her instructions), making the crowd label her as the champ, and he has to pose as her "pet", much to Cid's dismay.
• Badass Cape: So badass it stays with him through two transformations (see below).
• Big Good: A textbook example. The party takes out Kuja, but they wouldn't get anywhere without Cid's backing.
• Cool Airship: Cid's prototype steam-powered airships usually fall under this heading — with the possible exception of the Hilda Garde II.
• Cool Chair: His throne has a built-in elevator that allows the throne itself to move between two floors.
• Cool Old Guy: An older man, a technological genius, helps out the party in a myriad of ways and is just a good guy overall.
• Emperor Scientist: The monarch of Lindblum is busy developing a groundbreaking new model of airship.
• Forced Transformation: Transformed into an oglop (by his wife Hilda), and later, after an unsuccessful attempt for a cure, a frog. Doesn't stop him from ruling his country, though.
• Gadgeteer Genius: A trait common with most Cids of Final Fantasy. So, not surprising at all. Part of the plot involves getting him back into human form, because being an oglop, and later a frog, messes with his mind and keeps him from exercising his full potential as an airship engineer/designer.
• Guest-Star Party Member: At one point you have to control him in a dungeon, but he won't fight in battle.
• Honorary Uncle: Treated Dagger like family, she even calls him Uncle Cid.
• King of Games: He's the champion of Tetra Master.
• Literal Transformative Experience: in Disc 3, Cid is finally reunited with his wife, forgiven for his infidelity and transformed back into a human; not only is Cid able to return to work with renewed confidence and design the Cool Airship of the game, but he enjoys a much better relationship with Hilda from then on.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: As a human, he's one of the most brilliant scientists in the world. In his oglop and frog forms, his mental faculties aren't nearly as sharp, which prevents him from finishing an advanced airship to help the heroes until his cursed is reversed.
• Morphic Resonance: His mustache is always with him through both transformations.
• Mythology Gag:
  • He's the 9th Cid (including Cidolfus Orlandeau from Final Fantasy Tactics.)
  • Fabul... What kingdom do we know by that name?
• Non-Mammalian Hair: His mustache stays no matter what he's polymorphed into.
• Parental Substitute: Eventually adopts Eiko. He is very pleased to hear her call him father.
• Really Gets Around: It's hinted that he was always a womanizer, and that his wife only found out about one of his mistresses.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: "a peaceful but proactive ruler". He provides regular support for the heroes.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: He accompanies Zidane and company for part of their journey, and he also designs the airship they travel on later in the game. In fact, he rescues half of the party from a deathtrap during their imprisonment in Kuja's desert castle, personally. While still in frog-form. Later on, he helps lead the armada of airships — almost all of which he designed and his country built — against the horde of silver dragons that Kuja sent after the party en route to the final dungeon.
• Silver Fox: His mustache is grey, but he can still charm the ladies.
• Verbal Tic: "Gwok" as an oglop, "Ribbit" as a frog. Ever after he's transformed back to his old self, he has a bit of trouble dropping them.
• Worf Had the Flu: Being turned into an oglop then later as a frog seriously hampers his ship-making abilities.
• Younger Than They Look: He is 35.

Dr. Tot

Eiko: He looks pretty smart. Hey, you look like the bookish type!

Dr. Tot: Ha ha ha...what gives you that impression?

Eiko: You really want me to explain?

Dr. Tot: Oh yes, I'm quite curious.

Eiko: Where should I start...? First, your beard! Second, your nerdy hat! Third, your thick eyeglasses! All signs of a nerdy philosopher!

A former loyal servant of Queen Brahne, Dr. Tot left Alexandria years ago to do research. The heroes meet up with him again in Treno, when they need a Supersoft and a way back to Alexandria.

---

• Absent-Minded Professor: Tends to get lost in thought rather easily, wandering off muttering to himself about whatever's currently on his mind.
• Accidental Misnaming: Baku can't get his name right.
• Eccentric Mentor: Tot's a smart guy, but get him started on a subject that interests him, and he'll fly off into his own little world.
• Gag Nose: One so large that it accounts for roughly 75% of the total size of his head.
• Intergenerational Friendship: with Eiko whom he helps write a love letter.
• The Last DJ: Chose to leave Alexandria when Kuja started influencing Brahne's rule.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: That hat makes up a quarter of his height.
• Mr. Exposition: He provides a lot of information on the backstory of the setting and some of the characters, including the truth behind Garnet's adoption.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Dr. Tot tutored a young Garnet, and is also an accomplished writer, historian, and astronomer. He also apparently has some medical training, given that he mixed a potion that was meant to cure Cid of his being turned into an oglop. In fact, all it did was turn him into a frog, but in Dr. Tot's defense, he wasn't sure if the remedy was going to work anyway.
• Opaque Nerd Glasses: Eiko says they mark him as a nerdy philosopher, which he is.
• Parental Substitute: Dr. Tot provides both emotional support and material aid to Garnet during Discs 2 and 3. He also helps Eiko write a love letter to Zidane.

Puck

A bratty Burmecian kid who's known to pop up at the most random moments, his first act of significance was making Vivi his personal Butt-Monkey. Secretly the prince of Burmecia.

---

• The Artful Dodger: Introduced running around Alexandria, "accidentally" bumping into people.
• Bratty Half-Pint: The kid sure has an attitude, that's for sure.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He first appears at the beginning of the game in Alexandria, helping Vivi sneak inside the theater to watch I Want to be Your Canary in secret. He doesn't reappear until much later in the game, when he's revealed as the prince of Burmecia.
• Keet: Seeing him run around and act high and mighty is quite a sight and especially since he hangs around Shrinking Violet Vivi so much.
• King Incognito: He' introduced as a seemingly random street rat, but he's later revealed to be the prince of Burmecia all along.
• Rebel Prince: Has no desire to return to his homeland, even before it's destroyed. After the war, he can be seen running helter skelter through the streets of Alexandria with nary a care.
• Running Gag: Runs over Vivi every time he shows up.
• Walking the Earth: Puck travels all over the world and through his travels, he encounters Sir Fratley and then continues his travels after sending him to Cleyra to help out.

Sir Fratley

A Dragon Knight of Burmecia, he was Freya's lover, and one of the few to match her in skill. Fratley left Burmecia in search of greater challenges, with Freya searching the world in hopes of finding him again.

---

• Big Damn Heroes: His return to Cleyra is marked by him saving people from black mages.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: He remembers nothing about Freya, or himself. He just feels compelled to fight For Great Justice.
• One True Love: He never does remember his past or Freya, but by the end of the game, he's fallen in love with her all over again.
• Punny Name: Sir Fratley.

Mikoto

The least apathetic of the Genomes of Bran Bal, Mikoto welcomes the heroes to Terra and shows them the way to Pandemonium, Garland's fortress. Garland created her to be his newest Angel of Death, meant to replace the uncontrollable Kuja and then-missing Zidane. When the latter finally learns the truth, he adopts her as his little sister.

---

• Artificial Human: Like her whole race she was created by Garland.
• Cain and Abel and Seth: The third Angel of Death. Mikoto provides important exposition but otherwise receives less focus than her brothers and is largely an outside observer to their conflict.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Scenes of her in the Black Mage Village show that she is slowly learning about concepts like friendship and love.
• Emotionless Girl: She was given a soul by Garland, and therefore she's capable of emotions, but because she grew up exclusively around other Genomes, she has no clue how to use them.
• Happily Adopted: By Zidane as his sister and by the Black Mages as their friend. Mikoto and the rest of the Genomes find a home in the Black Mage Village, learning about the ways of Gaia and that there is more to life than waiting in an emotionless fog.
• Ms. Exposition: Her initial role when the gang first arrives in Bran Bal is explaining how things work there.
• Mysterious Waif: First appears as an enigmatic, silent girl whom Zidane feels compelled to follow.
• Scary Dogmatic Aliens: She is a Terran. She's truthful, but her quietness and lack of emotion make her appear cold.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Mixed with a bit of Tsundere: she seems as cold and remote as the other Genomes, but grows flustered and indignant when Zidane refers to her as his little sister, and later waxes compassionately about Kuja and his impact on the Genomes.
• Younger Than They Look: She's an Artificial Human created by Garland, but she appears as a teenage girl of around 15 years old.

Stiltzkin

A minor celebrity of sorts among Moogles, Stiltzkin is on a worldwide backpacking trip, bringing him conveniently to the same locations as your heroes on occasion.

---

• Badasses Wear Bandanas: As a proper world-traveling adventurer, he wears a bandana.
• Bold Explorer: His main claim to fame is his wide ranging exploration.
• Famed In-Story: Among the Moogles; they all seem to know who he is, and for them a visit from Stiltzkin is something to write a letter to your friends about.
• Perpetual Poverty: Hinted at; he'll offer you items for a price to fund his trip.
• Recurring Traveller: He pops up at the same locations as the heroes, if they can find him.
• Walking the Earth: Backpacking from one end of Gaia to the other.

Alleyway Jack

Little more than a small-time crook, Alleyway Jack relies on quick schemes and staying on the move for a living. There's more to him than that.

---

• Dirty Coward: Whenever confronted by someone who looks capable of fighting, he immediately runs away in fear. This usually results in him dropping some item for the party in the process.
• Foreshadowing: His multiple arms are a rather subtle example, given his true identity.
• I Have Many Names: His real name is Gilgamesh. Yes, that Gilgamesh.
• Kick the Dog: He shamelessly pickpockets the player on multiple occasions.
  • When he first appears, going without speaking to him will result in him suddenly and violently mugging Vivi before running off.
  • When Garnet first arrives in Treno, Jack will bump into her and rob her if the appropriate ATE is viewed.
  • Finally, if the player takes more than twelve hours to finish the game, he will steal the Excalibur II, Steiner's Ultimate Weapon, from Memoria.
• Leeroy Jenkins: His tough-guy act is a response to his being bullied for having four arms. But an act is all it is — he nearly craps himself with fear when he realizes that he's trying to pick a fight with Amarant. Steiner and Quina, the comic relief characters, also intimidate him at different points during the game.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Minus the dangerous part but definitely the arms. He's Gilgamesh after all.
• Mythology Gag: A walking one considering that he's Gilgamesh.
• Oh, Crap!: Nearly soils himself with fear when he realizes that he's trying to pick a fight with Amarant.
• Pet the Dog: He provides your first Tetra Master tutorial, and thus showing that he's not all bad.
• Recurring Traveller: The heroes can find him in many locations.
• Walking the Earth: He travels the world and is encountered in Alexandria and later Daguerreo and then leaves after his sidequest is over.
• Would Hurt a Child: Perhaps not "hurt", but he's not above mugging Vivi or attempting to kidnap Eiko to get back at Amarant.

Lady Hilda

The wife of Regent Cid. An offscreen character for the first two disks, she is mysteriously absent when the gang first arrives in Lindblum. It turns out she has been kidnapped by Kuja and is also responsible for Cid being turned into an oglop.

---

• Affectionate Nickname: After she turns Cid back into a human, she is quite affectionate with him and is shown to have several pet names for him, variously calling him "sugar-cup," "darling" and "my sweet froggy-woggy" (referential of the fact that he was also a frog for a while due to a potion.)
• Gilded Cage: Says that Kuja didn't treat her like a prisoner and was very nice to her.
• I Call Her "Vera": The Hilda Garde airships were of course named after her.
• Lady of Black Magic: Has some magic though the extent of it is unknown.
• Ms. Exposition: Midway through Disk 3, having the benefit of Kuja explaining his entire plan to her while she was held prisoner.
• Mythology Gag: She shares her name as Princess Hilda from Final Fantasy II.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Complete with hoopskirts, bustle, poofy sleeves and a train.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Is simply found by accident in Mt Gulug where Kuja abandoned her and needs little persuasion to turn Cid back into a human. Therefore, all the trouble to change him back without her help was pointless.
• The Unfair Sex: Averted. Cid calls her out on her petty revenge and the two admit how silly they've both been before reconciling.
• Woman Scorned: Turned Cid into an oglop as revenge for him cheating on her with a waitress.

Quale

Quina's master and also an optional boss once Quina catches all ninety-nine frogs.

---

• Bad Liar: Insists he doesn't know anyone by the name of Quan, but repeatedly makes it clear he knows Quan is of the Qu tribe and has enough familiarity with him to call him a bigot on principle.
• Chef of Iron: As Quina's master, he is highly skilled in the art of culinary combat.
• Improbable Weapon User: As with all Qus, Quale uses a giant dinner fork as a weapon. He also has a giant sword-like carving knife hanging on the wall of his house in the Qu's Marsh on the Mist Continent.
• Making a Splash: Uses the Water and Aqua Breath spells a lot, and is healed by Water-elemental attacks.
• Optional Boss: Fighting him is optional, but he gives the best weapon for Quina if he is defeated.
• Rolling Attack: Rolling Attack, where he curls into a ball and launches himself at a party member.
• Status Effects: Will inflict Poison, Mini, Confuse, Blind, and Silence.
• Stern Teacher: Quale initially reproaches Quina for not being able to feed himself and needing Zidane to catch a frog for him. However, once Quina buckles down and starts applying himself to catching frogs, Quale begins rewarding his progress. Later, Quale challenges Quina to a final test once s/he catches 99 frogs, and congratulates Quina on his progress when s/he wins.
• Supreme Chef: He's a master Gourmand.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Claims to "not know that bigot" when Vivi asks about Quan.

The Knights Of Pluto

The only unit of male soldiers in Alexandria's military, which is otherwise an all-female Amazon Brigade. Besides Captain Steiner, they include the double super-sleuths Blutzen and Kohel, the writer Laudo, the artilleryman Dojebon, the knowledgeable Breirecht, the ladies' man Weimar, Haagen who knows Alexandria's streets backward and forward, and Mullenkedheim, the winner of last year's cannonball race.

• Amateur Sleuth: Blutzen and Kohel are experts at detective work and gathering information. Their best role during the attack on Alexandria is to gather information.
• Big Eater: Mullenkedheim can be found in the castle's feast hall complaining about how hungry he is. Later, when the Knights are helping to rebuild the castle after it's wrecked, he says he wants to start by rebuilding the kitchen.
• The Casanova: Weimar knows all the girls in town, and his knowledge makes him one of the ideal knights to protect the townspeople during the attack on Alexandria.
• Catchphrase: Haagen repeatedly talks about his "fury" early in the game.
• The Face: Laudo is the best writer among the Knights, which makes him suited to contact Lindblum for aid when Alexandria's attacked.
• Gender Incompetence: Most Alexandrians see the Knights as a bunch of incompetent boobs, and they don't help their case. When Steiner calls the Knights to attention at the start of the game, only two of them show up in their underwear. The rest of the Knights are all wandering the castle doing their own thing, and Steiner has to go find them.
• The Gunslinger: Dojebeon is the best artillerist in Alexandria, while Mullenkedheim won last year's cannonball race. That makes them ideal for using Alexandria's cannons when the city's invaded.
• Hidden Depths: As inept as the Knights generally are, they all have their own areas where they shine.
• Interservice Rivalry: With Beatrix's personal squad, and the Knights seem to be on the losing end.
• The Lancer: Breirecht is implied to be the oldest of the Knights, and he also knows what all his teammates' specialties are. His experience and knowledge may be what makes him best-suited to ask Lindblum for aid when Alexandria's attacked.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: The Knights generally seem to be a ceremonial guard, but when Alexandria is attacked in Disk 3 they can show a shocking level of competence, especially if Dagger gives them the right orders. One of the citizens you can talk to later says that the Knights did an excellent job evacuating the citizens and that there weren't nearly as many casualties as there could've been.
• Mr. Exposition: When the party is searching for Dagger in Alexandria Castle in Disk 2, several of the Knights can offer clues on how to find her.
• Mugged for Disguise: Blutzen and Kohel get beaten up and have their armor stolen as disguises by Zidane and Blank at the start of the game.
• The Navigator: Haagen knows every inch of Alexandria's streets. It makes him ideal for helping to protect the townspeople during the attack on Alexandria.
• The Squad: Subverted. They're the only male unit in Alexandria's army, but they're mostly an inept joke.
• With This Herring: Several characters comment about Steiner's rusty armor, and it's implied the other knights aren't much better. When Blank puts on his stolen armor, he complains that it's too big and makes his back itch, his helmet stinks, his boots are wet, his gloves are slimy and his pockets are full of cookie crumbs, implying that the Knights' equipment is...subpar compared to their female equivalents.

Bosses

Plant Brain

The first boss of the game that is the ruler of Evil Forest.

---

• Load-Bearing Boss: After its death, Evil Forest turns to stone.
• Man-Eating Plant: A plant with flower petals on its head that plans to eat the princess.
• Starter Villain: Other than the Black Waltzes, it is the first 'wild monster' boss that the party faced.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: In a meta sense. Those familiar with previous games will find this guy much nastier than Guard Scorpion and Ifrit.

Gizamaluke

A dragon-like boss who the party encounters in the titular Gizamaluke's Grotto. He's supposed to be loyal to Burmecia, but Zorn and Thorn seemingly control him and sicc him on the party.

---

• Alas, Poor Villain: All we know him as is a puppet of Zorn and Thorn, the Burmecians are mortified though, assuring us normally he is a stoic noble guardian. He doesn’t get better, he’s killed without ceremony
• Brainwashed and Crazy: He’s being controlled by Zorn and Thorn.
• Making a Splash: He often uses "Water".
• Non-Malicious Monster: Before Zorn and Thorn took control of him he was a fully sentient friendly guardian monster of Burmecia.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: He's a pretty damn tough guy for the point you encounter him in-game, especially if you're underleveled. He'll also constantly inflict Vivi with Silence so that he can't use his magic on him.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Throwing a Tent (which applies blind/silence/poison) will absolutely cripple him. Players who somehow find this out by accident will later get a lot more mileage out of this little trick.

Soulcage

A tree-like abomination that is the source of the Mist in the Iifa Tree. It is revealed in Disc 3 that the monster the party destroyed is an illusion, in which Soulcage's actual goal is to halt Gaia's souls and replace them with Terra's.

---

• Badass Boast: Claims the party cannot defeat him as he has "seen the end of his thousand-year life, and it is not now." Cue the party destroying him minutes later.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: Being undead, it can be defeated instantaneously with a Phoenix Down, Life spell, or an Elixir. However, using a Fire attack on it will raise its strength, and allow it to use an ability called Fire Blades.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: It's not that he's a Bad Liar; he literally cannot lie, as he admits himself.
• Climax Boss: Defeating him stops the Mist. Were it not for the ongoing threat of Kuja, he could arguably be considered a Big Bad in his own right given the Mist's effect on the world.
• Eldritch Abomination: Soulcage's plant design looks more alien, granted as he and the Iifa Tree are of Terra origin.
• Kill It with Fire: Zig-zagged. It has an elemental weakness to Fire magic, but it'll prompt Soulcage to use Fire Blades at the party, making his attacks deadlier until the flames are extinguished by using ice/water-related attacks on him, or never using a fire-related attack on him in the first place.
• Logical Weakness: Being an undead tree, his weakness to fire makes sense. Unfortunately, it also makes sense that lighting him on fire will allow him to deal fire-elemental damage of his own, increasing its attack potential.
• Meaningful Name: His name's meaning is not immediately apparent until Garland's plan is understood. Soulcage is reponsible for filtering the souls of Gaia so that Terran souls can take their place.
• Revive Kills Zombie: He's a damn tough guy if you decide to fight him fair and square, but you could alternatively get the fight over in a flash with Phoenix Downs or Elixirs.
• The Undead: It is a zombie that looks like a giant tree.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Due to being undead, Soulcage can be instantly killed through the Life spell or Elixir item, can or reduced to single digit HP with a Phoenix Down.
• When Trees Attack: A sapient zombie-tree-monster who attacks the party.

Ark

^{Click to see its mech form}

The guardian of Oeilvert, protecting the Gulug Stone. It can be later used as Dagger's most powerful summon.

---

• Casting a Shadow: Its signature attack "Eternal Darkness" deals Dark-elemental damage.
• Cool Ship: It looks like a pretty badass airship.
• Death from Above: The Eidolon.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Subverted. The fact that you can summon it has nothing to do with its defeat in Oeilvert. It's not even certain whether the Ark you fight as a boss and the Ark you summon are the same entity.
• Dub Name Change: Its original attack name is "Dark Fate".
• Expy: It's based on the player-controlled mech from the old Squaresoft game Cruise Chaser Blassty, but with more of a fantasy flair to it.
• Foil: Basically a Dark-elemental airship version of Alexander, a Holy-elemental castle. Both can transform.
• Kill It with Fire: When it first attacks, all of its firepower does this to the point it evokes "War Is Hell" and a plain glimpse into hell. No wonder why it's considered Shadow elemental. Then...
• Mythology Gag: You need the Pumice in order to learn how to summon Ark. In the Japanese version, Pumice is simply called a Floating Stone, which was also an item required to receive the airship in Final Fantasy.
• Nuke 'em: Its send-off is an ultra powered laser blast so powerful, you can see the blast from space.
• Sapient Ship: An eidolon shaped like an airship.
• Transforming Mecha: When summoned, it turns from its airship form to a badass mecha form, then lets out tons of lasers on the enemies. Fortunately, it never transforms when you fight it as a boss.

Valia Pira

The embodiment of the magical defense systems that control the Desert Palace, taking the form of an elaborately-decorated obelisk with a golden crown. It battles the members of the party left behind in Kuja's custody while Zidane and co. are in Oeilvert.

---

• Achilles' Heel: All of its attacks are considered magical and can be reflected. If Eiko is in the party her Carbuncle summon can render the entire party invulnerable against Valia Pira's attacks for multiple turns, and if at least one party member has Auto-Reflect equipped, the battle becomes outright impossible to lose.
• Attack Reflector: Occasionally casts Reflect on itself, which can be annoying considering the Desert Palace party is likely to consist of primarily spellcasters, thanks to Oeilvert's Anti-Magic properties.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: At the start of the battle, it gains a number of buffs dependent on the bloodstones the player failed to deactivate while exploring the Desert Palace. However, it also gains those buffs if anyone in the party happens to be wearing any of the equipment dropped from the deactivated bloodstones. As a result, it can become anything from a virtual Zero-Effort Boss to one of the most challenging fights in the game depending on the player's actions.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Primarily attacks with the -aga level variants of the three primary Black Magic spells.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Exists exclusively to provide a boss fight for the Desert Palace. Kuja never mentions its existence, and it plays no role in the plot before or after the battle against it.
• Guide Dang It!: None of the details under Puzzle Boss below are spelled out to the player prior to the boss fight prior. Hope you saved beforehand (and/or looked up a strategy guide) if you happened to mess up.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Should the fight drag on too long, it'll start pulling out Holy and Flare spells in favor of its basic attacks.
• Status Effects: Can use Freeze (which makes the next physical attack that connects a One-Hit Kill) and Mustard Bomb (which will cause the target to die if they take any action, even an automatic counterattack due to being hit, or simply defending). What can make this frustrating is if the player doesn't have Eiko in the party, or if she hasn't learned Esuna yet, then there is no way to remove these effects unless the target is killed.

Guardians of Terra

Clockwise from top-left: Lich, Kraken, Maliris, and Tiamat

Four guardians that are known as Lich (Earth Guardian), Kraken (Water Guardian), Marilis (Fire Guardian), and Tiamat (Wind Guardian). They are later re-fought in Memoria as the 'Chaos Guardians'.

---

• Blow You Away: Tiamat has the ability to blow a party member away from battle.
• Combat Tentacles: Unsurprisingly, Kraken has these.
• Elemental Embodiment: Each Chaos Guardian represents a different elemental power. Lich is earth, Kraken is water, Marilis is fire, and Tiamat is wind.
• Expy: Series veterans will recognize them as the Four Fiends from Final Fantasy.
• Four Is Death: There's four of them, and they are quite deadly indeed.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Their origins are not really explained, although if they are the "four tremendous sacrifices" and the "selected subjects" mentioned in Oeilvert, they may be implied to be Terran warriors who agreed to be turned into monsters in order to safeguard the Shrines.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Marilis is wielding swords in her revived self.
• Multiple Head Case: Tiamat has three heads.
• One-Winged Angel: All of the Guardians of Terra come back in altered forms, usually with more limbs or heads. Marilis initially has two arms at the Fire Shrine, but later has six in Memoria; Tiamat only has one head at the Wind Shrine, but three heads in Memoria; Kraken has only a few tentacles at the Water Shrine(although he doesn't appear on screen-this image only comes from one of the artbooks) but has two much larger tentacles in Memoria; and Lich has short blades on his arms, but comes back with Spikes of Villainy, including long BFS-sized blades on his arms, in Memoria.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Tiamat is a dragon.
• Playing with Fire: Marilis uses fire as her magic power.
• Skeletons In Thecoat Closet: Lich wears a necklace made of skulls and armor made out of bones.
• Snake People: Marilis's appearance is half-serpent.
• The Undead: Lich is a lich.

Silver Dragon

Kuja's dragon that he rides in the first half of the game. Another dragon of the same species is later summoned by Garland and slain. Later, several hundred of the species attack the heroes as they try to enter Memoria.

---

• Dragon Rider: Kuja uses the Silver Dragon as his mount. Garland doesn't ride his dragon, but it obeys his every command.
• Our Dragons Are Different: A white dragon with feathered wings that give it a bird-like appearance.

Nova Dragon

The leader of the Silver Dragon army at the start of Disc 4.

---

• Expy: His name is Japanese is read as Shinryu...which means that he is THAT Shinryu, as part of this game's many callbacks. Dissidia Final Fantasy later confirms him to be an appearance of said recurring monster. Thus, the reference in the English version is a case of Lost in Translation.
• Giant Wall of Watery Doom: One of the Nova Dragon's attacks is unleashing a tidal wave.
• Our Dragons Are Different: It is a dragon that's bigger and stronger than the Silver Dragon.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: It's colors are this compare to the Silver Dragon's white appearance.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Despite being a boss, it is vulnerable to sleep. With proper timing this can be used to defeat it without ever allowing it to act.

Deathguise

A boss fought in the Crystal World. This skeletal monster was summoned by Trance Kuja to kill Zidane's party, and is the third-to-last boss in the game (the final two being Trance Kuja and Necron).

---

• Call-Back: To Deathgaze from Final Fantasy VI. They have similar names (Downright identical in the Japanese version), and are both flying skeletal monsters.
• Colony Drop: It's fond of casting Meteor on the party.

Tantarian

"I've been found!"

An Optional Boss that can be found in the library of Alexandria Castle. This monster hides in a book to shield itself from attacks, though it can be forced out temporarily. He can only be encountered at two points in the story: during disc 2 when the party is rescuing Garnet from having her eidolons extracted, and on disc 3 when the party arrives to save Garnet and Eiko who are trying to summon Alexander.

---

• Logical Weakness: Being a demon inhabiting a book, he's naturally weak to fire and holy.
• Mythology Gag: He shares several design elements with the various possessed book enemies from Final Fantasy V.
• Optional Boss: He is an extra boss that can only be encountered twice. Miss out on both opportunities to fight him and he's Permanently Missable.
• Paper Master: While hiding inside the book, he'll attack the party with "Paper Storm," launching a swarm of pages at them.
• Permanently Missable Content: He can never be encountered aside of the two windows of opportunity you're given. Fortunately, he doesn't have any special pieces of equipment, so there's no real penalty for missing out on him.
• Puzzle Boss: To an extent; he starts the battle closed inside the book, which increases his defense. Attacking then turns the book to a page based on the number value of the damage dealt. When the page that conceals him is found, he becomes more vulnerable, and only casts Poison instead of its more damaging attacks. He will however return to the closed-book state after a number of turns, or if hit with a physical attack.
• Shout-Out: Tantarian is a corruption of/reference to Dantalion, a Grand duke of Hell who, according to Goetic demonology, is often portrayed as a book-carrying demon affiliated with the arts and sciences. The French version of the game instead names him Lovecraft.
• Throw the Book at Them: He's able to clobber the heroes with the spine of his book.
• Time-Limit Boss: If you choose to fight him on the first opportunity you're given, considering there's a time limit to save Garnet before she loses her eidolons. Doing so is not recommended unless you level grinded, however, especially considering he's pretty damn powerful for that point in the game.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Weak to fire and holy. You know, being a demon dwelling inside a book and all.

Hades

An optional boss that is fought in Memoria. He's said to be the legendary Synthesis Master, and grants the player his services as such once they beat him.

---

• Cool Chair: He sits on a stone throne made of stalagmites.
• Defeat Means Friendship: He's so impressed by the party's power after they defeat him that he opens his Synthesis shop for them.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Both his Judgement Sword and his throne have a single eyeball, the latter of which is red.
• Graceful Loser: He takes his defeat so well, he offers the party his services as the Synthesis Master after he's defeated.
• HP to One: His Judgement Sword attack will bring characters down to a digit.
• In the Hood: He wears a red hooded cloak.
• I've Come Too Far: He says this during your battle against him should you happen to have already defeated Ozma before fighting him.
• Oh, Crap!: He's notably shocked if you already beat Ozma before fighting him:
  Hades: Wh-What!? You have defeated Ozma!? I have come too far to retreat. Onward!
• Slouch of Villainy: Sits in his throne for the entire fight, launching attacks from it.
• Superboss: The second hardest optional boss in the game, next to Ozma. Fittingly, he was planned to be the Final Boss, but was delegated to an optional enemy. For extra badass points, "Hunter's Chance" plays during his fight, as opposed to the standard boss music.
• Ultimate Blacksmith: He's the Synthesis Master, and allows you to craft some of the best equipment in the game after defeating him.

Ozma

The most powerful (optional) boss in the game. He looks like a swirling sphere, and implied to have been an Eidolon. He's hidden away in an "Eidolon Cave" in Chocobo's Air Garden, though Mene warns you beforehand that this cave is bad news.

---

• Ambiguous Situation: It is either an Eidolon that never truly formed or an Eidolon that's so old that no one remembers what it looks like. Given the nature of summons in this game, if an Eidolon is forgotten, it's original appearance is destroyed. Now it's just a ball of (seemingly) mindless energy.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: If the friend quest is done, Ozma will no longer evade physical attacks and his shadow resistance turns into shadow weakness. Despite that fact, it still casts Doomsday, a spell that deals massive shadow damage against every combatant, even the caster. The result is that Ozma can, in fact, commit suicide with this spell.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Like many other Final Fantasy superbosses, beating him grants a few: his Tetra Master card, a Pumice that can make Dagger learn the Ark summon (Though said item can be obtained another way), and the Strategy Guide key item, which does nothing but congratulate you when you press Select while highlighting it. ("You are now invincible. Great job!")
• Bright Is Not Good: This tropes also applies to Eidolons! This thing doesn't speak, it just fights, and unless you've already beaten the game chances are it will steam roll you.
• Colony Drop: Meteor and Doomsday, both which have the potential to be a Total Party Wipe.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Ozma has a unique AI script that, if its attacked when its ATB bar isn't filled, its bar will instantly fill. Furthermore, while normally commands by enemies and party members will execute in the order they're inputted, Ozma can take its turn in between yours and will do so.
• Dub Name Change: To Gaia in the French version.
• Elemental Absorption: It absorbs the Shadow element, unless you've beaten the friendly enemy sidequest, after which it becomes a weakness, which you can exploit delightfully if you equip all four of your party members with a piece of equipment that either nullifies (Egoist's Armlet) or absorbs the shadow element such as Ninja Gear, Pumice Piece or Demon's Mail.
• Holy Hand Grenade: It can cast Holy and LV4 Holy.
• Mana Drain: Did you burn out Ozma's MP? He'll just use Absorb MP to steal yours.
• No-Sell: He's out of your physical attacks' reach, and absorbs the shadow element, unless you've done the friendly enemies sidequest before fighting him, which makes physical attacks able to reach him and makes him vulnerable to shadow.
• Status Effects: Loves to cast Curse a lot, which will inflict the party with Slow, Blind, and Mini. He'll sometimes use Berserk as well.
• Superboss: As per Final Fantasy tradition, he's even more powerful than the Final Boss, and completely optional. Even the place where he's hidden is optional.
• White Magic: It will start casting Curaga on itself when its HP is low.

---