Characters / Final Fantasy XVI Protagonists

Main Index | Protagonists (Clive Rosfield) | The Hideaway | The Grand Duchy of Rosaria | The Dhalmekian Republic | The Holy Empire of Sanbreque | The Kingdom of Waloed | Eikons and Notable Creatures/Beings | Other Characters

Main Protagonist

See this for tropes on Clive Rosfield.

Party Members

Torgal

^{As a puppy}

A wolf who, like Jill, hails from the fallen Northern Territories of Storm. Having been separated from his pack, Torgal was found by Elwin Rosfield during an expedition conducted by the latter. The Archduke brought the stranded pup home with him to Rosaria, and from that day forward Torgal was raised as a part of the Rosfield family. After surviving a great tragedy that occurred in his youth, Torgal would reunite with Clive years later, and would go on to serve as a faithful companion on his master's journey.

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• Attack Animal: He serves as one to Clive, able to attack in tandem with him and is actually the only companion that the player can actually command.
• Attention Deficit... Oh, Shiny!: As a puppy, he's easily distracted and tends to run off on his own. Because he's a puppy.
• Badass Adorable: Growing past his puppy phase diminished his cuteness only but a little. After a hard battle of brutally mauling and savaging enemies, Clive can give him pets and scratches that he enjoys to the fullest.
• Berserk Button: Don't try to remove his anklet. He'll angrily growl even at Clive if he attempts it. As he was growing up without Clive, Joshua or Jill by his side, Torgal would often gnaw at his paw out of worry and heartache. To prevent him from injuring himself further, Cid slapped the cuff on him and said he'd remove it once "he found what he was looking for." In the end, it was Clive he was looking for the most, but is still very militant about his keeping the anklet, with the implication being that it's his own way of remembering Cid.
• Big Damn Heroes: Torgal transforms for the first time when he saves Jill from when she is about to be executed.
• Big Friendly Dog: A gigantic wolf who's beloved by the residents of Cid's Hideaway thanks to his gentle, friendly demeanour.
• Canine Companion: According to his bio, he is Clive's most constant and steadfast party member.
• Contagious Powers: As a frost wolf, he is capable of passively absorbing the aether of the people around him, particularly Dominants. Historically, a legendary frost wolf named Fenrir was a servant to a queen of the Northern Territories believed to be Shiva, which is how it got its powers. Torgal, however, spends time with several different Dominants, giving him great magical power that he learns to put to great use. He's not a Dominant himself, but he's close to it.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Umbra was a divine Messenger in the form of a dog who acted as intermediary between Noctis and Luna, was not part of the party, and served no purpose other than a time-travel mechanic. Torgal is a mortal wolf descended from a divine being and an actual party member who the player can command.
• Fire/Ice Duo: Torgal is a wolf from the Northern Territories, a land of snow, and is paired with Clive who wields fire. Becomes a straighter example when Torgal gains the ability to wield ice magic.
• Foreshadowing:
  • One of the hints that Torgal is not, in fact, a normal wolf, is the fact that he can enter areas that are flooded with aether with no ill effects. Animals and non-Dominant humans turn Akashic when exposed to too much aether, driving them mad. The fact that Torgal can accompany Clive and Jill into such places without going Akashic is a big clue that he's actually a frost wolf.
  • Real life wolves have a lifespan of 14 to 16 years old, yet Torgal doesn't show any visible signs of aging, let alone dying of natural causes.
• Happily Adopted: According to his bio, Torgal was a pup who was found during one of Elwin's missions, probably separated from his pack by accident. Elwin took the dog home as a gift to Clive, and the two have been nearly inseparable ever since.
• Howl of Sorrow: Torgal lets one out during the ending sequence, when Jill believes Clive to have perished up in Origin.
• An Ice Person: After being revealed as a frost wolf and awakening his powers, Torgal begins to use ice magic in battle and can even transform.
• Noble Wolf:
  • He's actually a wolf, not a large dog, and tends to carry himself and engage in battle with the sort of dignity expected from an alpha. Apart from the moments when he's getting pets from Clive, at which point he just sort of melts back into a puppy.
  • Later it is revealed that Torgal is actually a rare frost wolf, descended from a legendary wolf called Fenrir, which means that he has been augmented by the aether of the Dominants around him like Fenrir was to an ancient ice queen believed to be Shiva. Considering he mostly spends his time with Dominants, he is able to build up enough magical power to be something akin to a Dominant himself, allowing him to cast magic in combat and even transform.
• Older Than They Look: A minor example, but by the time you're about one-third through the game, Torgal is eighteen years old, but most definitely does not shown any signs of aging that you would assume a wolf that old would have. This is because he's not a normal wolf, but a Frost Wolf, which likely has a longer lifespan than that of a normal wolf.
• Precious Puppy: In the prologue, he's an adorable puppy companion to the Rosfield siblings, frequently jumping up around Clive and trying to show him affection. Not quite so much after the timeskip, where Torgal is less "precious" and more "ferocious" as an attack dog who helps Clive during battles.
• Shout-Out: He's one to the the Stark children's dire wolf companions, being a lupine who forms a bond with the protagonist after being separated from his pack.
• Sole Survivor: Besides Clive himself, Torgal seems to be the only one who survived the events at Phoenix Gate, as his barks are what rouse Clive from being unconscious just in time to witness Ifrit viciously and violently beating Joshua to death from an unclear viewpoint. Years later, he reunites with Clive to serve as his Canine Companion. Subverted when it turns out both Joshua and Wade also survived the events of Phoenix Gate.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Like Nektar and Tomes he really loves kupo nuts, habitually helping himself to the latter's stash - especially after his Frost Wolf instincts - and appetite - awaken. Hilariously, Torgal actually thinks that the loresman is sharing his nuts with him.
• Tragic Keepsake: His anklet. Cid gave it to him to keep him from chewing on his own leg, and he insists on keeping it after Cid's death as a way to remember him.
• Undying Loyalty: Man's best friend indeed. Even after getting beaten and bloodied by a powerful combatant like Benedikta, he gets back up shortly after with very little worse for wear, instantly jumping to chomp down on her and rescue his master.

Jill Warrick

Voiced by: Susannah Fielding, Charlotte McBurney [young] (English); Megumi Han (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs}Claire Baradat (French); Ilaria Silvestri, Beatrice Maruffa [young] (Italian); Maria Koschny, Josephine Schmidt [young] (German); Analiz Sánchez (LA Spanish)

^{Jill at 12 years old}

"What makes them think they have the right to use us? To leave us to die when our bodies are spent."

A ward of House Rosfield raised alongside Clive and Joshua, Jill was once a princess of the now fallen Northern Territories, taken from her homeland of Mysidia at a tender age in order to secure peace between the two warring nations. At twelve years of age, she has become a trusted confidant to Clive and Joshua. However, fate would tear the three apart after a great tragedy befell the Grand Duchy of Rosaria. Cast from one misfortune to the next, Jill would eventually awaken as the Dominant of Shiva.

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• Action Girl: A skilled swordswoman and the Dominant of Shiva who's able to fight along with Clive and co.
• Altar Diplomacy: When she first came to Rosalith, Anabella had many ideas about who she would be eventually married to in order to advance the families agenda and whether she should be sold as a bride to another noble house or married to one of her sons. For what it's worth, a couple of commoners you speak to in the prologue believe it will be the latter.
• Battle Couple: Downplayed. By the time she and Clive act on their feelings for each other, Jill only joins the party again after the completion of an optional sidequest, and she does not accompany him for any important story battles. However, played straight in the Echoes of the Fallen and The Rising Tide DLCs where she fights alongside Clive (and Joshua) after she has definitively established her relationship with him, as one requirement of unlocking both of these questlines is to complete her character sidequest "Priceless."
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: For someone who spent years as an abused battle-slave of a culture that sees her as an abomination, Jill is remarkably unmarred after being freed from the Ironblood. About the only sign of her mistreatment is some dirt on her face, which is easily cleaned off after she's liberated. She's also said to have a fairly advanced case of the crystal's curse, yet never shows any signs of the related petrifcation even in the scene where she's naked on the beach with Clive.
• Birds of a Feather: With Clive. Both of them are reserved, powerful warriors who care for the wellbeing of those around them and have hearts of gold. Both have a history of suffering from Anabella's derision and both of them were Made a Slave for thirteen years before reuniting. Both also seek closure from their traumas by wishing to take revenge and support each other through it. They also both have a tendency to push themselves too hard, refusing to rest or seek treatment for their wounds.
• Braids of Action: As an adult, she has a long braid in her otherwise low-tied hair, and she's a capable fighter.
• Broken Tears: When she realizes Clive is likely dead following the defeat of Ultima, she runs out in tears. Subverted when the sun rises, giving her and Torgal hope he's out there still.
• Brought Down to Badass: She is still a skilled swordswoman and even retains some of her magic after giving up her abilities as Shiva's Dominant to Clive, and fights alongside Gav and Dion at Waloed against the Akashic hordes overrunning the land. She also joins Clive and Joshua in their investigations of the dusk crystals and the Sagespire and their journey to Mysidia as a third party member in the Echoes of the Fallen and The Rising Tide DLC stories, both of which take place after she's given up said powers.
• Childhood Friend Romance: She was raised like a sister alongside Clive, and while it was hinted that they may have had blossoming feelings for each other as teens, they wouldn't make their romantic feelings for each other known until they met again as adults after a long separation.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Extremely downplayed; she gets briefly jealous and irritated when a courtesan subtly flirts with the oblivious Clive in front of her.
• Combat Medic: If Clive is grievously wounded in a fight, she'll attempt to cast a Cure spell on him before he goes down - although this shouldn't be relied on exclusively in a frantic fight, as her spells take time to cast and the player is better off using a potion if at all possible.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Like Lunafreya before her, Jill is a fair-haired heroine clad in white, as well as a former princess who is childhood friends with the protagonist. They also have a connection to Shiva; for Luna, it was via her handmaiden Gentiana, while Jill is Shiva — or at least, her avatar. However, Luna fell under the series' job class of Summoners and White Mages and was an Action Survivor who mainly wielded a trident, whereas Jill is a more straightforward Action Girl who uses rapiers and offensive magic skills. Luna was killed in the middle of XV's story, in contrast to Jill who survives to the very end.
• Cool Big Sis: To Mid. Mid's Inner Voice reveals that Jill is "the big sister [she] never had."
• Damsel in Distress: As part of her background, she was saved as a child by Elwin when she was taken hostage by the third party. In the story proper, she requires rescuing from being captured on two occasions: once from Hugo when she and Clive return to Rosaria, and another from Barnabas after Clive's first battle against him goes south and Jill buys him time to escape.
• Death Seeker: She's become this when Clive encounters her after the prologue, as the combined trauma of being exploited by the Iron Kingdom, fighting a grueling battle against Titan, and being ambushed by the Bastards (which includes Clive) makes her lose all her will to live. When the Iron Kingdom regiment forces her to fight the Bastards to cover their retreat, she flat-out says she's had enough and would just like to be killed off by her assailants. It's only thanks to Clive recognizing her after defeating her that she survives, and after spending some time recovering at the Hideaway, she grows out of this.
• Dented Iron: Because of her time serving as a Living Weapon for the Ironbloods, Jill has been forced to prime many times and now will only use her ability to turn into Shiva under the most dire circumstances to avoid the crystal's curse. After having done so while destroying Drake's Breath she's removed from the party as she's unfit to fight and needs to rest and recover.
• Depower: Late in the game, Clive absorbs her Eikon Shiva's powers as he needs all the Eikons' strength to have a fighting chance against Ultima. While she gladly agreed to it, Joshua punches him the next day for doing so, as he angrily snaps at Clive that he didn't really give her a choice since she loves him so much that she would never refuse him anything. However, Joshua is missing the context that Clive didn't ask her to do it: it never even crossed his mind to take her power until she made the offer herself.
• The Face: When traveling together with Clive and they need to speak with various townspeople, Jill is the one who has to take the lead due to Clive's facial tattoo marking him as a Bearer, and thus a far lesser status. This becomes less necessary when Clive goes through the surgical procedure to get it removed over the second time skip.
• Fallen Princess: Her bio on the game's official website reveals that she is the princess of the fallen Northern Territories, and she goes through quite the ordeal after being seized by the forces of the Iron Kingdom following the Fall of Phoenix Gate.
• Fire/Ice Duo: With Clive, pairing Ifrit and Shiva together as they have been throughout the series.
• Happily Adopted: Despite her circumstances, her official bio notes that she has been raised to be as much a part of the Rosfield household as Clive and Joshua and, as a result, has become a trusted confidant to the brothers.
• Hidden Depths: Granted it's not exactly a....high bar to reach, but she's a much, much, much better actor than Clive. While it's no doubt due to the trauma and need for developing several crucial survival skills while living as a prisoner of the Iron Kingdom, she can fib her way in and out of sticky situations fairly convincingly.
• An Ice Person: As Shiva's dominant, she channels the Eikon's power of ice. She is Clive's most frequent party member after Torgal, conjuring icicle spears, radial spikes, and giant ice crystals she can drop on enemies.
• Informed Attribute: Jill's put her body under enough strain from transforming into Shiva that Tarja notes at one point that the Crystal's Curse has progressed on her. Despite this, her skin isn't worse for wear and she shows no signs of petrification even towards the end of the game where she sits naked with Clive on a beach.
• The Lancer: She's the de facto second in command to Clive as a gentle, more placid influence to his vengeful and fiery manner, and stays right beside him in battle and manners of strategy.
• Like Brother and Sister: Due to being raised alongside her, Clive and Joshua grew to view her as a sister. Jill and Clive gradually shed this view of each other when they’re adults, and the two of them fall in love.
• Living Weapon: After Rosaria's annexation she is kidnapped by the Iron Kingdom and forced to serve in their military. They threaten to kill Rosarian hostages, particularly little girls, if she refuses to follow orders.
• Nice Girl: While she's a hardened warrior who has a very cynical (but justified) view of Valisthean society, she's a kind woman at her core who fights to make the world better because it's the right thing to do.
• Not So Stoic: She generally keeps a very tight leash on her emotions and takes bad news coolly even in private, with only a few instances where she lets her feelings bubble up to the surface. When she confronts Imreann, the Ironblood leader who enslaved her for 13 years, she freely lets out nearly two decades worth of pent-up fury and trauma out in a snarling rant, being the angriest she ever gets in the story. On the opposite type of emotions, as Clive prepares to fly off to the final battle, she sends him off with a smile. It is only after he and Joshua have become a speck on the horizon on Bahamut's wings that she allows herself to break down in public and cry, sobbing for Clive's return. In the game's ending, she has an even bigger breakdown when she looks out the window and sees Origin has been destroyed, and rushes out of the room to cry on the balcony with only Torgal accompanying her.
• Parental Substitute: During her time in the Iron Kingdom she finds one in Marleigh, a woman who was captured in Rosaria along with her. Jill describes her as her "light in the darkness" while she was there.
• Political Hostage: Prior to the game's events, she is a hostage taken from the Northern Territories raised alongside Clive and Joshua. Despite that, this is a kinder variation of the trope since she has a good relationship with the brothers and is close with both of them.
• Plucky Girl: She never gives up, at least when she was a teen. In adulthood, when Clive first finds her she is barely a shell of her former self, and after she awakens she is very bitter and cynical. It isn't until after hanging around Clive and Cid that she finally begins to return back to her younger plucky self.
• Revenge is Sweet: Jill is unable to move past her trauma she experienced under the thrall of the Iron Kingdom, and specifically Imreann the head of the Crystal Orthodoxy, and when she sees an opportunity for vengeance when she and Clive journey to Drake's Breath she tells Clive she intends to take it. And she does without hesitation, feeling much freer because of it.
• Royal Rapier: Her use of a fancy rapier touches on all the ironic, conflicting meanings of such a weapon (which historically was used by both the aristocracy and by lower-class criminal street-fighters). She's a Fallen Princess who was later Made a Slave, with her new blade given to her by her masters to mark her status as their prized-but-hated Living Weapon. After being freed, she kept it as her weapon in her and her friends' quest to free Valisthea from slavers and tyrants as a band of outlaw guerrillas.
• Ship Tease: The adolescent Clive and Jill are said to be Like Brother and Sister, but a handmaiden in Rosalith remarks that they make a "handsome pair" and that the castle will be having a "feast" (read: a wedding celebration) for them in due time. This comes to a head when they reunite as adults and Jill makes it clear she's interested in a relationship with Clive and after some awkward tension, the two go from going on lakeside picnics to making love.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: The world seems dead set on keeping her and Clive apart. The ending is ambiguous on whether Clive survives the end or not, potentially averting the trope.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: Jill is shown to enjoy textile work, which she learned as a child in Rosalith Castle. As an adult, she makes Clive a handkerchief based on what kind of cloth he gives to Hortense, the keeper of the stores.
• Time-Shifted Actor: In English, Italian, and German, she's voiced by Charlotte McBurney, Beatrice Maruffa, and Josephine Schmidt at age 12 and Susannah Fielding, Ilaria Silvestri, and Maria Koschny at ages 25 and 30.
• Tritagonist: While the game focuses mostly on Clive and his brother Joshua, Jill has importance to the story by virtue of being Clive’s loyal second-in-command, serving as The Face when talking to townspeople in Clive’s stead due to his facial tattoo marking him as a Bearer before the second time skip, and gradually falling in love with him over the course of the game. She also (outside of Torgal) spends the most time out of any other character as a party member.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Clive. While they had been seperated for 13 years, after their reunion they immediately hit it off again, and Everyone Can See It. However, neither acts on their feelings, both choosing instead to focus on the tasks at hand. Even after the 5 year time skip during which they were closely working together they still haven't hooked up, and it isn't until near the end of the game before they act on it.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Much like Clive, she was pretty much sweetness and light back when living with the Rosfields. Come the "adult" portion of the game, she's significantly more hardened, and a lot more bitter about how Dominants are treated.
• Warm-Up Boss: Serves as the first Dominant fought in the game and the first proper fight after the prologue. Compared to the much harder Dominant boss fights later on with Benedikta, Kupka and Barnabas, she's considerably slower and less accurate with her attacks, noticeably more so than even the prologue bosses. Justified as she's being forced to prime against her will after having just recovered from her earlier fight with Titan, meaning that she's weakened, exhausted and doesn't really have the will left in her to fight.
• The Worf Effect: She fully primes into Shiva to take on Barnabas, who proceeds to easily defeat her, implicitly without priming much himself, to prove that his defeat of Clive was not a fluke and in fact he's barely scratched the surface of what he's capable of.

Cidolfus "Cid" Telamon

Voiced by: Ralph Ineson (English), Hiroshi Shirokuma (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs}Jérémie Covillault (French), Alberto Angrisano (Italian), Daniel Welbat (German), Carlos Segundo (LA Spanish)

"I only wish to offer our kind a choice—a place where we can die on our own terms."

The Dominant of Ramuh, whose power awoke in him shortly after he set foot on Valisthea's shores. Cidolfus - known to his friends as Cid - is the leader of a organisation founded with the purpose of sheltering Bearers from the threat of persecution and Dominants from becoming pawns to the political players of Valisthea. Cidolfus wishes to create a haven where people are granted the right to die with the dignity of a human being, regardless of who they are or where they came from. On top of this, Cidolfus is also engaged in various other pursuits, including research into the Blight that is gnawing away at the life and magic of the continents of Valisthea. Though he is now a neutral party to the conflict plaguing Valisthea, Cidolfus was once a subject of the Kingdom of Waloed, and possesses history of some sort with the kingdom's current spymaster, Benedikta Harman.

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• The Ace: He's got it all — he's a skilled fighter and commander, a Dominant of Ramuh, a talented engineer and a great leader to all those who follow him. There is no wonder why so many people look up to Cid as a hero.
• Ambiguously Bi: Although it is established he had a previous relationship with Benedikta, Cid's attractiveness seems to be universal, as he teases some of the male characters more than once, and some respond in kind. Otto, the hideaway's manager, even has a sidequest detailing how they met and how much he looked up to Cid, in a way that seems to suggest more than just friendship. Furthermore, at one point other characters wonder if Cid took in Clive as "one of his bedfellows." He even takes a good long look at a naked Clive before telling him to get dressed.
• Ascended Extra: Most other incarnations of Cid in Final Fantasy are either supporting NPCs or party members that join late into the game. Cidolfus Telamon, on the other hand, is a party member from very early on and his influence is felt throughout the game, even after he dies.
• Badass Fingersnap: Cid disposes of a Fafnir of the North in such a manner, smiting the target with Ramuh's lightning.
• Baritone of Strength: Cid has an incredibly deep voice that makes even Clive sound high-pitched and resembles rolling thunder, fittingly for the former leader of Waloed's armies and the Dominant of Ramuh.
• Big Damn Heroes: His introduction — when Clive is alone, weakened, and cornered by the Ironblood who are trying to take back an unconscious Jill, Cid announces himself by frying the Ironblood.
• Big Good: He has, for the lack of a better metaphor, single-handedly established an Underground Railroad that keeps Bearers safe, healthy and free — along with everyone who protects them. And he is so ridiculously efficient at this that folks need only mention his name and they'll be raring to help.
• Blood from the Mouth: His condition as a Dominant is so advanced that every time he primes Ramuh's power, he coughs up blood into his hand.
• Cerebro Electro: Cid is the Dominant of Ramuh, the Eikon of Thunder. He is also an excellent engineer.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's got the driest sense of humour in the game, often making snarky comments at everything he sees.
  Cid: [after releasing an undressed Clive from his shackles] Get dressed. Pretty as you are, you're not my type.
• Defector from Decadence: A conversation with Benedikta reveals that he used to serve as Lord Commander in Waloed's army, until his ideals clashed with those of Barnabas's, or rather, he realized Barnabas has become Ultima's pawn.
• Dented Iron: He can be seen massaging his hand after letting loose large lightning bolts, revealed to be because his arm has started to petrify after prolonged use of his powers. Cid describes it as a war wound he got one lightning bolt at a time.
• Determined Defeatist: Privately, he feels that the world doesn't want his message and he's not really saving anyone, only enforcing his own will on people the same way the high and mighty do that resulted in Bearers being enslaved in the first place. He's not about to let that stop him from continuing to do his work, however. It ends up being Clive who shows him that the world is capable of changing, and that it needs to change in order for people to stop suffering the effects of the status quo.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Admits right from the outset that his belief that the Mothercrystals are causing the Blight is an educated guess, albeit one based on clear logic that is consistent with the setting's lore and that he can coherently explain to Clive and Jill. As it turns out, he's wrong - the Blight is caused by magic itself, and predates the Mothercrystals entirely.
• Excellent Judge of Character: He's got a knack for reading people and understanding their true motivations. For instance, he was absolutely right in saying that Barnabas was a charlatan who didn't truly care about anyone, that Benedikta was secretly insecure about her status in Waloed, and that Clive was the right person to pass on his powers and position to.
• Expy: Both his personality and design seem to echo Balthier from Final Fantasy XII, who helps the protagonist kick off their adventure and find an important truth. Both take pride in their outlaw status and are the group's designated snarker. Balthier was even closely related to that game's Cid.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He has a certain knack for technology, able to attach jet engines to his galleon and create a project of a brand new ship along with his daughter.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: After Ifrit kills Garuda, Cid has to shift into Ramuh and strike him down back to Clive to get him to stop his rampage.
• Good Parents: Based on what little we hear described of him from Mid, he was this to her, praising her engineering talents and sending her to school to help nurture those gifts — if not to help the cause, then to further her education.
• Hope Bringer: To the Hideaway; everyone who's a part of it has nothing but good things to say about Cid both before and after his death, and as seen with his interactions with Clive, he knows how to uplift those who were previously at rock bottom.
• Indy Ploy: He typically has something of a plan going into a situation, but outright expects his plans to go off the rails and force them to improvise their way to a solution. Clive gets annoyed at the lack of preparation, while Cid argues these unforseen difficulties merely give them a chance to grow and develop.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Downplayed; being a Deadpan Snarker with a dash of Brutal Honesty are his modus operandi, but make no mistake: Cid's heart of gold is as big as a Mothercrystal, and he's a rather amiable fellow all in all. After all, what could be more noble than working to create a world where slaves would no longer be slaves?
• Magnetic Hero: There's a continent spanning network of people working to liberate Bearers that mainly exists because of Cid's charisma in persuading others to support his cause and his ability to bring like-minded people together. Even five years after his death, most of Clive's allies are people that were already working with Cid.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: He dies during the raid on Oriflamme, protecting Clive from Typhon.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The name "Cidolfus" is shared with Cidolfus Demen Bunansa of Final Fantasy XII and Cidolfus Orlandeau of Final Fantasy Tactics, both of whom originate from the Ivalice Alliance sub-series. Furthermore, his status as the Dominant of Ramuh brings to mind the latter's epithet of Thunder God Cid.
  • His surname "Telamon", likewise, was the name of a Great Axe in Final Fantasy XI.
• Noodle Incident: While traversing the Glass Mines, Cid mentions how the last time he snuck inside Sanbreque's capital, he wound up facing Bahamut. He doesn't elaborate on the circumstances of their meeting beyond that he managed to get away with his life.
• One Last Smoke: Enjoys one before passing his powers onto Clive and expiring from his wounds at Drake's Head.
• Passing the Torch: After being mortally wounded by Typhon, Cid names Clive as the new leader of the Hideaway, charging him to continue their work to free Bearers across the continents and to see the Mother Crystals destroyed.
• Red Baron:
  • "Cid the Outlaw", the name that strikes terror into the hearts of his foes and gives hope to his allies, not unlike the Dread Pirate Roberts.
  • One of his other monikers is "Cid the Vicious," which he jokingly contemplates.
• Recurring Element: He is the Cid of the game.
• Red Herring: It's slowly shown that he's suffering more and more from the Crystals' Curse, to the point of coughing up blood and gradually turning to stone like Bearers do. Despite this, his failing health doesn't end up being his demise, but rather he goes out protecting Clive from Typhon.
• Running Gag: Cid and his "shortcuts." They always just lead to more trouble. Always.
• Sacrificial Lion: He dies trying to protect Clive from Typhon. Said death truly reinforces the fact that ANYONE can die, if Joshua or Biast's death didn't clue you in yet.
• Secretly Dying: He's slowly succumbing to the Crystals' Curse which turns parts of his flesh into stone due to the overuse of his powers. He usually hides the symptoms under his clothes.
• Shock and Awe: Comes with being the Dominant of Ramuh. While he favors melee combat as a party member, he mixes in some electrical blasts as well.
• Smoking Is Cool: Regularly stops to light a cigar. Leads to One Last Smoke after Typhon deals a mortal wound to him.
• Supporting Leader: He is the leader of a secret society of Bearers, that seek freedom from the persecution and exploitation they face in the other nations, and he is the founder of the Hideaway which serves as the game's main Hub Level.
• Take Up My Sword: A metaphorical example. Just before passing away, Cid forces Clive to extract Ramuh's power from him in the same way he claimed Garuda's power from Benedikta.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's a rather handsome fellow with the driest wit in all of Valisthea.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Among the Hideaway and their allies. The mere mention of his name is enough for people to help Clive and Jill without any further prompting, even after his death.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With just about everyone but especially with Clive, the two constantly snarking at each other and bickering Like an Old Married Couple. Jill even gently teases them about it while smiling.
• The Worf Effect: He gets laid out fairly quickly in his fight against Benedikta after both of them semi-prime their Eikons, establishing her as a major challenge that Clive will have to overcome. Though considering their history and later events, it's clear that Cid was holding back out of a desire to redeem Benedikta rather than kill her.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: After Clive learns the truth about Phoenix Gate, Cid spends his time rebuilding Clive's confidence and self-esteem while Clive is stuck in a Heroic BSoD.

Gav

Voiced by: Christopher York (English), Anri Katsu (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs}Vincent Ropion (French), Davide Fumagalli (Italian), Norman Matt (German), Ernesto Mascarua (LA Spanish)

One of Cid's field agents, a Cursebreaker scout who is often in charge of searching for clues to where to find enslaved Bearers. While not a Bearer himself, he sympathizes with their cause and works hard to help them.

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• Badass Normal: Gav is no Bearer or Dominant, but frequently fights alongside Clive and the others regardless and more than holds his own. He is a party member on more than one occasion, and has a natural resistance to aetherfloods—a rarity in non-Bearers.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Gav knows how to celebrate and takes a few opportunities to do so, but he can be a bit of a sloppy drunk. Clive can drink him under the table.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Gav completely understands Clive only living for revenge and alludes to being in a similar state himself after the imperials massacred his entire family.
• Eye Scream: He has his right eye slashed during the Dhalmekian attack on the Hideaway, losing use of it. It doesn't make him any weaker, though.
• Handicapped Badass: Losing his right eye in the destruction of Cid's Hideaway doesn't slow him down one bit. Notably, all of the segments with him in the party occur after this injury.
• Inexplicably Awesome: Gav is a master tracker and scout who's skills are given no explanation beyond Cid saying he has a "nose" for it. Which could be taken as a simple summation of Gav's various skills, except a sidequest states that such a nose is required to be a scout and it isn't something one can develop; a potential scout either has it, or they don't.
• Moment Killer: Gav walks in and interrupts an Almost Kiss between Clive and Jill.
• My Greatest Failure: He regrets that he did nothing but hide when the imperials came and killed his family to this day.
• No Romantic Resolution: Gav seems to gain some feelings for Edda, the pregnant Waloeder woman they rescue, and when drunk he loudly proclaims that he's "going to be a father" until Clive admonishes him and asks what the mother would think about that. Later in the conversation, he says the baby will be more like the baby brother that was taken from him. When the baby is actually born, he is the first to go meet it, along with Jill, and refers to himself as "Uncle Gav," but either way it is ambiguous whether or not he begins a romantic relationship with the mother. Her own feelings toward him are never really shown aside from gratitude, which doesn't make it an example of Maybe Ever After.
• Number Two: He acts as this to Cid, being one of his most capable scouts. He later becomes one to Clive, after the latter takes up the mantle of the new "Cid."
• Overshadowed by Awesome: He hints at some insecurity about this early on, as he is usually told by Cid and Clive that he has to stay behind or be kept out of the most dangerous parts of the fighting on account of not being a Bearer or a Dominant. He comes to terms with what his strengths really are, though, and continues to throw himself into the fray without hesitation on account of the trust they have in him regardless.
• Platonic Life-Partners: What he and Clive end up becoming post timeskip, becoming Clive’s most trusted confidant that isn’t Jill or Joshua.
• Plucky Comic Relief: His presence often brings much-needed levity to grim events, allowing for some lighthearted banter. It should be noted that he's not just comic relief, but is a very competent scout and a formidable fighter who can pull his weight, even when fighting alongside the magnitudes-stronger Dominants.
• Rescue Romance: Implied with Edda, the pregnant Waloeder woman he and Clive find as the Sole Survivor of the Akashic turning, as he is present at her giving birth in the game's ending fawning over her newborn child.
• The Runt at the End: Gav reveals to Clive that he is the youngest of all his siblings, and the "runt" of them. He was happy to learn that his mother was having another child, which meant he could finally be a big brother.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: His main skill. Nothing on the Twins evades Gav's fabled nose for very long.
• Ship Tease: He gets a little with Clive early on, getting flustered when Clive rescues him from soldiers. Clive gets a little too close to him, flustering him further, and when he waves Clive off Cid has this to say while wagging his eyebrows:
  Cid: I think he likes you.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: He's grown quite foul-mouthed and much more short-tempered after the second timeskip, and is responsible for dropping the majority of the game's f-bombs in the second half of the game.
• Sole Survivor: His family was murdered by imperial soldiers when he was a child, leaving him the only survivor. They even took his newborn baby sister.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Discussed by one of the Hideaway's scholars. Gav is either immune or highly resistant to aetherfloods despite not being a bearer. The scholar theorizes that Gav is descended from one of the tribes Eikons are known to be born into, which gives him aether resistance similar to a Dominant.
• You Are in Command Now: Clive puts him in charge just before he heads off to the final battle.
• Younger Than They Look: He is only 21 when he first meets Clive and 26 after the second time skip, but he looks older than his age, likely due to the stress of his job and the traumatic experiences he's been through.

Byron Rosfield

Voiced by: Stephen Critchlow/Ewan Bailey (English), Mitsutaka Tachikawa (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs}Marc Bretonnière (French), Marco Pagani (Italian), Stefan Müller-Ruppert (German), Roberto Carrillo (LA Spanish)

Clive and Joshua's uncle, Elwin’s younger brother, and warden of Port Isolde following Rosaria’s annexation by the Empire of Sanbreque. Though he now lives as a recluse inside his manor, and appears to be content with appeasing the duchy’s imperial overlords, the flames of his loyalty to the Grand Duchy of Rosaria may not have truly burned out.

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• Back-to-Back Badasses: He gets a scene with Havel, where they are cornered and fight off their enemies back to back. They are about to be overwhelmed until Dion and the Dragoons appear to rescue them.
• Badass Normal: While a lot of his allies are Bearers and Dominants, he doesn't hide behind their back and engages in action himself, even becoming a NPC party member during the journey into Dhalmekia (where he proves himself to be entirely up to the challenge), and he even holds his own against the Sleipnir clones and hordes of Akashic.
• Berserk Button: His first appearance in-game is him storming into the room, axe in hand, ready to murder the man who dared pretend to be his dead nephew. Fortunately for all concerned, Clive is not pretending.
• Big Fun: Has a bit of a gut, and is nothing but a delightful man and dutiful uncle.
• Boisterous Bruiser: He's not afraid to get into the thick of it when the chips are down, and shouts challenges to his enemies while bragging about his own abilities.
• Brutal Honesty: Tells Clive he knows Clive is telling the truth because Clive has always been an absolutely terrible liar. Stunned, Clive looks to Jill who tries to be more delicate but has to admit that's not untrue.
• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: He's a heavily-built old man whose signature weapon is a large one-handed battleaxe, and he fights with it exactly the way you'd expect him to - with overwhelming, relentless power and a complete lack of subtlety.
• Cool Uncle: Clive has nothing but good words about him, clearly indicating that Byron is beloved by his brother's children.
• Fake Defector: He pretends to be The Quisling for Anabella's atrocities, but it's all a front to keep the people of Port Isolde safe. It helps that the empire is so distant and communication technology is so poor that he doesn't actually have to put up much of a show except to the occasional visiting official - the Rosarian citizenry are fully aware he's on their side.
• Famed In-Story: It's said there are countless tales about Byron's adventures that won him his fortune, told in taverns the realm over.
• Feeling Their Age: He takes a little more time when doing physical labor compared to the younger and spryer members of Clive's party, and he doesn't quite stick the landing when he jumps onboard the Enterprise. His age doesn't stop him from from kicking ass, however.
• Fiction 500: He has nearly unlimited amounts of money. At one point, he rolls up to the Hideaway with two crates containing a total of two thousand talents of (read: twenty million) gil ^note an optional sidequest mentions five hundred talents as equalling five million gil, ergo one talent = ten thousand that he got from selling a quayside mansion he wanted to get rid of. Shortly after that, he uses a Black Pearl to help Clive track down some Men of the Rock and waves it off as a "second-rate specimen" that was "barely worth half a million."
• Flashback Echo: When Clive invokes Something Only They Would Say, Byron blinks and briefly sees the younger Clive in place of the adult man in front of him.
• Good Is Not Soft: A genuinely kind, affectionate man to his people and his nephews, is introduced wielding an axe for the man he believes is impersonating one of his beloved nephews.
• Good Parents: He loves Clive, Jill, and Joshua, and is the closest thing to a decent parental figure they have as of the current day.
• Honest Corporate Executive: In a more medieval sense - he's got more money than he knows what to do with but he's a good man who wants to do right.
• I Call It "Vera": Played for laughs. He claims in a Badass Boast that his axe is named Earthshaker, and then later calls it Ogrekiller, and finally calls it Executioner.
  Gav: ...didn't you call it Ogrekiller just a minute ago?!
• Intrepid Merchant: Famous for carrying over his family's warrior spirit into the field of commerce. He's got a long history of adventure and derring-do across Valisthea, and is still a good enough fighter to pull his weight as an ARPG party companion.
• Large Ham: Byron is loud and boisterous, and always has loud and joyful exclamations.
• Manly Tears: He breaks down into tears, and very nearly a sobbing mess, when he finally realizes that the rugged 33-year-old man standing in front of him and reenacting a scene from their favorite play is his beloved nephew Clive. He similarly breaks into tears when he is finally reunited with Joshua in Kanver.
• Named Weapons: He boastfully refers to his axe as Earthshaker, but not even minutes later he calls it Ogre Killer.
• Mythology Gag: The many names he gives his axes? They are all recurring axe type weapons from over the course of the series.
• Nice Guy: While good ol' Uncle Byron can be quite boisterous and a bit of a boor, he's really a giant, bearded teddy bear of a man down to his core. There's a very good reason why Clive and Joshua adore him so much.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Nobility, but considering he is the brother of the former Archduke and the uncle of Clive and Joshua, he fits nonetheless. While he initially tried appeasing Anabella upon her ascension to Empress, he ended up funding the Guardians of the Flame the more despotic her rule become, while still playing the part of a spoiled nobleman. Once he reunites with Clive, he pretty much pours all of his life's savings into funding the Hideaway, and eventually takes a spot on the frontlines himself.
• Rugged Scar: He's got a thin vertical scar over his right eye, showing that he's a little more than just a blustering merchant.
• Self-Made Man: Downplayed. Byron is of noble blood, but as Clive notes he turned a small fortune into an unfathomably huge one through his own efforts and merits.
• Shout-Out: Considering the games' abundant references to A Song of Ice and Fire, Byron has some similarities to Brynden "The Blackfish" Tully, considering both are grizzled Silver Fox noblemen who were first brothers to their family's liege, Cool Uncles to a main character (Clive in the former, Catelyn in the latter), and survive the large-scale subjugation of their family and territory. The main difference is that Byron maintains a nominal alleigance to the enemy for pragmatism's sake, while the Blackfish becomes a fugitive and, at least in the show, dies for it.
• So Proud of You: He thinks that Clive being the one and only Outlaw Cid is nothing less than a badge of honour.
• Something Only They Would Say: When Byron first hears that his long-thought-dead nephew is visiting, he assumes that Clive and Jill are imposters come to rob him and storms into the room with his axe. Clive acts out a scene of a play that the two used to re-enact in happier times, which moves Byron to tears out of happiness that this is proof that his beloved nephew is alive and in front of him.
• The So-Called Coward: He calls himself cowardly more than once for not doing more to resist the imperial occupation of Rosaria, but he is the only one who believes it. He is actually a very brave man and only plays the coward role when he has no other choice.
• Still Got It: He proclaims that despite getting on in years he can still hold his own in a fight. From what we see of him in action during the game, this is entirely correct.
• Stout Strength: A pudgy old man who becomes a living bulldozer in combat.
• Tears of Joy: When Clive proves he's really alive by acting out part of a play they used to re-enact together, Byron can barely get his lines out through his tearful blubbering.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Mid is particularly informal with him, prompting him to retort that he's Lord Byron.
• Uncle Pennybags: Literally - he's a keen businessman and he helps fund Clive and Jill's journey, and has been supporting the Guardians of the Flame for years before that. Deconstructed as at a later point in the story, he complains that the costs of all their adventuring has been rapidly emptying his coffers, but he doesn't stop supporting their cause in spite of how unprofitable it is.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Eugen Havel, former chief strategist of the Republic. They'll deny being friends and bicker whenever they share a scene together, but they have a relationship like old war buddies, and come to the support of each other without hesitation. Along with Quinten, they even forge a "Triunity" in the hopes of bringing peace to the realm between their three countries.
• You Remind Me of X: Often will say how something Clive says or does reminds him of Elwin.

"Margrace" (WARNING: UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Joshua Rosfield

Voiced by: Jonathan Case (English), Takeo Ōtsuka (Japanese)^{Foreign VAs}Hervé Grull (French), Andrea Oldani (Italian), Flemming Stein (German), Mario Heras (LA Spanish)

"My flames may flicker... But they shall never die!"

Despite being assumed dead after the fall of Phoenix Gate, in truth Joshua survived and went into hiding for his own safety as the Empire seized control of Rosaria. Thirteen years later he resurfaces investigating the truth behind Dominants, Eikons, and the Mothercrystals, going by the alias "Margrace" and concealing his identity with a red cloak and hood. When Clive hears of this mysterious hooded man who seems to be a Dominant of Fire — a description that also applies to the being he saw at the fall of Phoenix Gate — he pursues "Margrace" believing him to be Joshua's murderer, unaware of the Dramatic Irony of this misconception.

Though Joshua keeps his distance for a time, he and Clive nearly cross paths more than once, and eventually are reunited and work together to save Valisthea.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Who really wrote the book Final Fantasy in the epilogue? The book is authored by Joshua, but it's left ambiguous as to whether someone else wrote the book under his name after his death, or if Clive revived him.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: You take control of him once again during the fight against Bahamut and one final time during quick-time events in the final battle.
• Badass Boast: While not overconfident by any means, he's a Dominant of the Phoenix, and he knows it. When confronting Ultima for the first time, he gives him a simple and succinct reminder while sealing him.
  "Have you forgotten already who I am?"
• Badass Bookworm: He is still as studious as he was as a child, and he often serves as Clive's strategist as well as his partner in the field.
• Baritone of Strength: Going along with him becoming a lot more powerful as an adult, he's got a fairly deep voice, though it's not as deep as Clive's.
• Barrier Warrior: All Dominants can create "Eikonic barriers", bubble-like aetherial shields that they use to block attacks, but he makes particularly regular and proficient use of them. It's not clear whether this is a special talent of the Phoenix, or just a form of magic that he's chosen to train particularly heavily in.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Just like when he was a lad, Joshua can be disarmingly polite and sweet, but make no mistake, he is extremely powerful, and his life experiences for the past 18 years have made him almost as ruthless as Clive at times.
• Big Brother Instinct: Little brother, but Margrace is just as protective of Clive as Clive was of him in his childhood.
• Big Good: After being revived by the Phoenix and discovering the existence of Ultima, Joshua donned the title of Margrace and become a spymaster to free his brother from enslavement and subtly free the world from the Mothercrystals.
• Big Little Brother: When the two reunite as adults, Joshua is taller than Clive, but only by a few centimeters.
• Black Cloak: Subverted. He wears a dark All-Encompassing Mantle, but he turns out to be the Big Good, and actually somewhat less of an Anti-Hero than his brother. He stops wearing it after the second timeskip.
• Blood from the Mouth: Very frequently, he falls into coughing fits that leave him with blood all over his mouth or on his gloves, especially after a grueling battle. It is mostly due to the frail constitution he's had since he was a child, but also his ordeal of sealing Ultima into his chest.
• Break Her Heart to Save Her: Downplayed. It's evident from the outset that Jote has a crush on him, though his dedication to his mission makes it difficult to read whether he knows about it, or how he feels about her. Near the end, it's revealed that he does in fact feel the same way about her, and has for a long time. However, due to the near unspeakable peril ahead of them all, he decides to cut her loose and orders her to stay behind at the Hideaway to keep her safe, leaving her visibly heartbroken.
• Delicate and Sickly: He still has the same frequent coughing fits he had as a child, except now it has gotten worse due to how physically demanding his lifestyle has become and later due to keeping part of Ultima in himself. Jote travels alongside him partially for protection but also to provide him medical attention.
• Deuteragonist: It is almost as much of his story as it is Clive's, even before they reunite. The story cuts back and forth between his actions and Clive's, chronicling their shared battle against Ultima and everything culminates in them facing their greatest foe together.
• Does Not Like Spam: 18 years older, and he still doesn't like carrots. Clive notices a plate that has a small pile of carrots pushed to one side when Clive and Byron are in the Dalimil Inn on a tip searching for Hugo, just missing Joshua and Jote leaving by the inn's window when Clive has to fight off several Waloed royalists.
• A Father to His Men: He cares for his servant Jote, to the point that he only got caught because she was captured and threatened. Given how he is Joshua, it only makes sense; he's colder, not heartless.
• Foreshadowing: There's a few hints that Margrace is Joshua, and trying to help out.
  • The most blatant is that the lore screen specifically notes him as "Man called Margrace"; it's a title Joshua came up with to maintain anonymity.
  • What leads to his initial capture by Benedikta is him going back to save Jote, his maidservant. This already establishes him as not nearly being ruthless enough to orchestrate the Night of Flames despite his apparent presence, or at the very least very Affably Evil. He didn't even exist as an identity before the Night of Flames, as he wasn't even an adult at the time, and that figure wasn't him. This is emphasized when Margrace escapes, he's careful and measured with his fire magic, with Jote noting that the captured Bearers escaped, further hinting at him not wanting to cause any more harm than necessary and seeking to protect innocents as well.
  • Jote addresses him as "Your Grace", the style of the archduke of Rosaria, which Joshua would have inherited from his father when he became of age.
• Feigning Healthiness: Both Jote and later Tarja have to do everything in their power to get him to take his medicine, and Joshua will always claim that he's doing fine even if he was coughing up blood just minutes before.
• Gentleman and a Scholar: Joshua still has his princely manners twenty years after the fall of Rosaria. Upon meeting Mid for the first time, he drops to a knee and takes her hand while calling her "My lady." This surprises everyone, with Mid herself busting out laughing before pulling Joshua to his feet.
• Good All Along: The mysterious cloaked manipulator Margrace is actually Joshua Rosfield trying to protect his brother from behind the scenes.
• Go Through Me: He delivers this line to Ultima when he stops him from taking his brother at Drake's Head.
  Joshua: If you want him, you'll have to go through me.
• Guile Hero: Out of reluctance to cause another destructive fire like with what happened in Phoenix's Gate by drawing too deeply on the Phoenix's power and to avoid releasing Ultima by accident, Margrace works behind the scenes to prepare the world to fight Ultima while derailing their scheme to possess Clive.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: After it's revealed he's Joshua, he pulls his hood down to reveal his hair is still as blond as his intentions are noble.
• He Is All Grown Up: Grows from a scrawny and sheltered prince to a handsome and dashing warrior over the course of a decade and change.
• Headbutt of Love: He has a few of these with both Jote and Clive. For Jote, it is often when parting, and he even kisses her forehead.
• I Got Bigger: Did he ever. He was introduced as a small and sickly child and reappears as a young man who's as tall as his already quite tall older brother.
• I Should Write a Book About This: The epilogue reveals that Joshua chronicled the game's events into a book titled Final Fantasy.
• King Incognito: As the surviving Joshua and thus, the Dominant of the Phoenix, Margrace is the current Archduke of Rosaria, but is keeping his survival a secret even from his own brother.
• Magic Knight: Like the other Dominants, Joshua combines his magic and swordplay effortlessly, with a slight inclination toward his magical side.
• Meaningful Name:
  • "Margrace" comes from Al-Cid Margrace, prince of Rozarria from Final Fantasy XII, with both Margraces being a prince of Rozarria/Rosaria. Al-Cid was also an "unofficial" version of the recurring Cid character, further hinting at a connection between him and Cid/Clive.
  • Joshua is derived from the Hebrew "Yeshua", which was transliterated into Greek as Iesous and later transformed into Jesus, fitting someone who has managed to come Back from the Dead.
• Missed Him by That Much: More than once, Clive and Joshua nearly cross paths but don't meet face-to-face, largely because Joshua keeps his distance to continue his own quest incognito. This is most prevalent when Clive and Byron visit the Dalimil Inn; Joshua and Jote are also staying at the inn at the exact same time, but a bar fight breaks out that causes Jote to flee with Joshua, both of them unaware Clive and Byron were there. It's only after the brawl when Clive notices the Phoenix Down from Joshua glowing that he runs upstairs and finds an empty room with a plate of food with the carrots uneaten, and realizes how close he came to seeing him again.
• Mistaken for Own Murderer: Clive initially thinks that Margrace is the Dominant of Fire responsible for killing Joshua. Margrace is a Dominant of Fire, but only because he is Joshua himself, while the Dominant of Fire that killed Joshua was actually Clive having transformed into Ifrit and going on a rampage.
• Mistaken for Undead: When finally reunited with his mother after 18 years, Anabella, driven mad with grief over the death of Olivier, mistakes Joshua for a ghost come to claim her and takes her own life in response.
• Mysterious Stranger: He first appeared before Clive when the Sanbreque Empire infiltrated Phoenix Gate to capture Joshua and kill everybody else, and proceeded to transform into the Dark Eikon Ifrit, an Eikon that should not exist when there can only be eight Eikons, one per element. He continues to show up at random intervals, usually when Clive is forced into a confrontation with either Dominants. As it turns out, however, Margrace is not Ifrit's second Dominant and is actually Joshua; the hooded stranger Clive saw at Phoenix Gate thirteen years ago was Ultima, and Joshua showing up whenever things go pearl-shaped is usually because of circumstances outside his control.
• Nice Guy: He's gone through the wringer, to be sure, but he still remains a sweet, soft-spoken young man. There are only a few times when he even raises his voice, and they're justified.
• Obviously Evil: Subverted. While he is a robed, shady sorcerer who obviously knows more about Clive than Clive does about him and was apparently introduced orchestrating the destruction of Phoenix's Gate, that person turns out to have actually been Ultima. Margrace is actually none other than the heroic Joshua Rosfield trying very hard to stop Ultima and save his brother.
• Older Alter Ego: "Margrace" is the identity taken up by Joshua Rosfield, now older and more experienced compared to how he was thirteen years ago.
• Older Than They Look: His delicate features and slender frame could easily cause him to be mistaken for a teenager, even at the ages of 23 and 28.
• Playing with Fire: As a Dominant for an Eikon of Fire, this is his personal form of magic. Unfortunately, this causes Margrace to be mistaken for Ifrit's Dominant since, as far as the rest of the world knows, the Dominant of the Phoenix was killed by Ifrit thirteen years ago.
• Poor Communication Kills: Margrace wanted to reveal his identity to Clive much sooner. Unfortunately, these attempts all backfired because of circumstances outside his control or their priorities not being aligned at those moments.
• Princely Young Man: Joshua is the son of a monarch and of Royal Blood, thus he is always refined, polite, and dignified.
• Red Herring:
  • Margrace is presumed by many, including Clive, to be the Dominant of Ifrit since he wields unusually powerful fire magic, which is a dead giveaway to anyone looking for him since the Phoenix's Dominant died thirteen years ago. Even when Clive is revealed to be Ifrit's Dominant, the sheer confusion surrounding Ifrit's existence leads Clive and Cid to speculate that Ifrit may have more than one Dominant compared to the other eight. It's not until later in the game you learn Margrace is not Ifrit's Dominant, but rather the Phoenix's.
  • When Margrace drops the hood and shows his face in "The Hunter and the Hunted", the game makes it seem as though Margrace is actually Joshua Back from the Dead, albeit in a case of Came Back Wrong whose ominous words imply he's antagonistic toward Clive. This cannot be farther from the truth: Joshua remains the same as he was thirteen years ago and is actually trying to help Clive. The problem is that circumstances and Ultima, his true enemy, make that more difficult than he wants it to be.
• The Red Mage: As the Dominant of Phoenix, Joshua is capable of casting offensive fire magic, defensive barriers, seals, and powerful healing spells. Fittingly, he primarily wears red.
• Reflective Eyes: In his dying moments, Joshua gives the rest of his powers to Clive, and a close-up of his eyes reflect the Phoenix wings that spread from Clive's back.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Everyone who assumes he's the Dominant of Ifrit due to his clear fire magic. He is a Dominant of Fire, but it's actually the Phoenix, as Margrace is the older, revived Joshua.
• Save the Villain: Tries to save his hateful mother, only for her to kill herself in the throes of madness and despair. The Mind Screw of Olivier's fate and Joshua's Eikon-mandated rebirth, both of which are far beyond the scope of her understanding, are too much for her to deal with.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Played for tragedy. His attempt to seal Ultima inside himself was a desperate act based off severely incomplete information - particularly that the god of Valisthea was actually an incorporeal Hive Mind that wouldn't be terribly inconvenienced by having one small fragment of himself locked away. All he accomplished was buying Clive some time to recover from the events of Drake's Head, and more tragically, giving himself a nasty injury that worsened his already-poor health and let the fragment of Ultima inside him pull a lethal Chest Burster when it was time to rejoin its family.
• Sibling Team: He and Clive team up in their Eikon forms to take on Bahamut. Ifrit takes the lead during the ground fights and disrupts Bahamut's strongest attacks, while the Phoenix provides air support, healing and protection, and takes the lead during the air phase. The two even synchronize Spitflares and work together to pierce Bahamut's shields. He later joins Clive as a party member in his further adventures.
• Stronger Than They Look: Though he is quite skinny and suffers from a terminal illness that leaves him fatigued and in pain often, he's much stronger than you'd think. He's got a hell of a sword arm, and a punch strong enough to very nearly KO the comparatively huge Clive. That being said, his forte is magical combat, though even that requires a certain amount of physical fortitude, especially in his condition.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Despite everything Anabella has done, Joshua still pities his mother enough after she's essentially lost everything, both all that made her a threat to the world and any hopes she had of living at the top of the world, that he is willing to save her. When she ends up dying instead, Joshua is shown to be more genuinely distraught by his mother's death than Clive, implying it's also out of remaining sentiment for Anabella rather than just pity like Clive probably feels at that moment.
• Time-Shifted Actor: None of his voice actors at age 10 in any language voice him at ages 23 and 28.
• Took a Level in Badass: As a child during the fall of Phoenix Gate, Joshua had to stop and catch his breath for a moment after using magic, and he wasn't particularly skilled with a sword either. The Time Skip sees him come into his own as a Dominant; not only is he able to prime and semi-prime without a problem, but as an AI ally he's got a good sword arm and is a lot more versatile with his magic, being able to make use of a flaming divebomb, a Magic Missile Storm of fireballs, and a Kamehame Hadoken of fire magic. He's also a scholar, tactician and diplomat, who's been able to sneak around Valisthea with few catching onto his true identity, let alone that he's even got magic.
• Uncertain Doom: Did he get Killed Off for Real at the end? Or did Clive revive him using the power of Phoenix? On one hand, the Phoenix's power does not allow people to revive others from the dead. However, the epilogue shows a book titled Final Fantasy authored by Joshua. Even then, it's left ambiguous as to who actually wrote the book.
• Walking Spoiler: He is the Not Quite Dead Joshua Rosfield, after all.
• What the Hell, Hero?: As he and Clive travel across Waloed to confront Barnabas, Joshua pretty quickly twigs to the fact that Clive has absorbed Shiva's powers, and decks him straight in the jaw for not thinking about how Jill would feel, flooring him outright. He yells at him for not realizing that Jill would always put him before anything else at the expense of her own feelings, with the Japanese dialogue even stating that Jill was holding in her pain and that Clive would make her cry. In addition, it still furthers Ultima's goals, and Joshua is none too happy about that.

The Atoner (WARNING: UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Dion Lesage

Seeking redemption for being driven mad by Ultima, Dion joins Clive and Joshua Rosfield as a Guest-Star Party Member during the raid on Origin. For more info on him, go here.