History Characters / FinalFantasyIX

* ShoutOut: Reis' Wind is one for to ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana''. In that game, the character Riesz [[SpellMyNameWithAnS (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.

* ToBeLawfulOrGood: The crux of his CharacterDevelopment 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 those criminals stop his power mad queen. He realizes that he can be both lawful ''and'' good by obeying the heroic princess.
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%%% "Towards Garnet, rather loudly and openly." is not context because it doesn't refer to the trope itself.
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* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Her PrecociousCrush 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 [[OnlyYouCanRepopulateMyRace 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 subject if Eiko is actually aware of the "physical" aspects of a relationship, possibly to keep her crush on Zidane from being ''too'' uncomfortable.[[/note]]

* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Eiko still has some growing up as far as maturity goes, but for a six-year old she is surprisingly intelligent and competence. 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 HeroicBSOD.

* PuzzleBoss: 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 ZeroEffortBoss to one of the most challenging fights in the game depending on the player's actions.

* TacticalSuicideBoss: Rather literally; if the friend quest is done, Ozma's 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, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_2JJJ1SRiM commit suicide with this spell.]]

* WouldntHitAGirl: 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 GameOver.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: A part of her CharacterDevelopment is that as much as she wants to be this trope, circumstances out of her control prevent it. She learns to stop feeling guilty about it later and become determined to be a strong queen for her people, eventually becoming leader of the alliance against Kuja.

** It's implied 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 HeroicBSOD, 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[[/note]].

* StayInTheKitchen: Zidane's refusal to let her join the scout party to Burmecia creates a rift between them for a portion of the game.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: The mists unleashed by Kuja awoke in her an incredible, sociopathic greed that only lifted [[spoiler:after Kuja fatally wounds her.]]

* NotHerself: Garnet, Cid and Beatrix have all noticed - she became reclusive after her husband’s death; When she finally started making public appearances again she was uncharacteristically giddy, bossy and callous.
* ObviouslyEvil: The vampiresque skin and mammoth size make players uncomfortable with trusting her. PlayedWith in that this is presumably her natural appearance but her evil-ness is a new trait.

* UglyGuysHotDaughter: Ugly queen in this case, or so the story wants you to believe. Her real daughter is stated to be identical to Garnet and your mind breaks all over again.

** She also turns on Kuja after conquering the Mist Continent, only to end up dead.

* TokenHuman: Everyone else is either visibly not human (Freya, Vivi, Quina), half human (Amarant), a human subspecies (Garnet, Eiko), or a genome (Zidane). Steiner is fully human.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Orphaned at the age of four during the last war between Alexandria and Burmecia.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Quina doesn't have any close friends among the group, who mainly seem to tolerate Quina. 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. Zidane at the very least, while frequently exasperated by Quina's food obsessed antics does seem genuinely fond of them. As does Vivi who was raised by another Qu so he's used to their style of culture and thinking. When it seems like Quina didn't survive Cleyra Vivi is devastated at the thought.

* BoobsOfSteel: Hits fast, hits hard, and has big breasts.

* BoobsOfSteel: The single most powerful woman in the game is also the most endowed. [[http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy/images/a/a1/Beatrix2.jpg Exhibit 1]].

* WalkingTheEarth: He travels the world and is encountered in Alexandria and later Dagguerro and then leaves after his sidequest is over.

* {{Expy}}: He is based on, and has many parallellisms to, [[Franchise/DragonBall 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. Both have a princess as their LoveInterest. Even Zidane's [[SuperMode Trance]] form looks similar to Goku's [[Anime/DragonBallGT Super Saiyan 4]].

* StepfordSmiler: He's very insecure and lonely, having no memories of his past and no real family aside from Trantalus. The reason he's so friendly and outgoing is to conceal the fact.

* WeaponTwirling: When equipped with the double bladed pole arm, he does in his VictoryPose.

* AwesomeButImpractical: 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 atackers 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.

* CutscenePowerToTheMax: 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 aformentioned murder). [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration This happens just after the battle with said button-pusher]], in which he starts in [[SuperMode Trance]]. This makes the battle ''very easy''.

* BelligerentSexualTension: He and Beatrix ultimately ended up together depite their initially antagonistic relationship.

* FormFittingWardrobe: Her orange jumptsuit that she wears for much of the game.

* MaleGaze: 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 derierre by design. This becomes even more apparent after she cuts her hair, getting rid of the main obstruction between her backside and the camera.

* MysticalWaif: She's not quite as mysterious as other examples, being that she lived in Alexandria as the princess all her life, but she fufills the narrative purpose of starting the plot and possessing supernatural powers.

* RebelliousPrincess: Plotting your own kidnapping as part of a political manuever against your mother the queen is certainly rebellious.

* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Quina doesn't have any close friends among the group, who mainly seem to tolerate Quina. 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. Zidane at the very least, while frequently exasperated by Quina's food obsessed antics does seem geniunely fond of them. As does Vivi who was raised by another Qu so he's used to their style of culture and thinking. When it seems like Quina didn't survive Cleyra Vivi is devastated at the thought.

* OlderThanTheyLook: [[AllThereInTheManual According to the game's Ultimania]], s/he's ''89''. Though it's worth stating that it's specificially mentioned in-game that Quina is fairly young [[LongLived by Qu standards]].

* OffingTheOffspring: She was planning to have Garnet killed for treason after she extracted the ediolons from her and had [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness no further need for her]], but Zidane manages to put a stop to it.

** To Zidane. Both are genomes and men of theather, 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.

* ArtificialHuman: Like all Black Mages they are artifical constructs.

* YouAreNumberSix: In this case, number 1, 2 and 3. They're just artifical people after all. Minor weapons that move.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: 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, off screen, manage to recover Steiner Freya and Beatrix and carry them back to Lindblum.

* SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear: 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 particuarly rare or useful to put on him, Marcus's turn in Disc 2 can have him potientially 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....

* OpaqueNerdGlasses: Eiko says they mark him as a nerdy philospher, which he is.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: He rememembers nothing about Freya, or himself. He just feels compelled to fight ForGreatJustice.

* SugarAndIcePersonality: Her personality flares up, when Zidane refers to her as his little sister.

* SupremeChef: Quina makes delicious meals and is seen several times in a kitchen giving orders.

** 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.

* PeekABangs: Her hair falls over her eyes. It has the hidden association.

* OverprotectiveDad: 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.

* ParentalSubstitute: Alongside Beatrix after Brahne passes on, as he assumes the role of the stern OverprotectiveDad to Garnet.

* BreakoutCharacter: By far and away the most iconic character to come out of ''IX'', and one of the most famous ''Final Fantasy'' characters outright, and even rivaling the likes of [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV Gilgamesh]],[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI Kefka]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Cloud]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX Yuna]], and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII Balthier]] in popularity. He's appeared in ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' as the only representative from ''IX'' despite Creator/TetsuyaNomura's reluctance to use characters not designed by him, is a starting character ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasyOperaOmnia, and has made appearances without [[TheHero Zidane]] in games like ''VideoGame/WorldOfFinalFantasy'' and ''VideoGame/ChocoboGP''.

* {{Expy}}: Confirmed by WordOfGod to be modeled on [[Manga/LupinTheThird Inspector Zenigata]].

* BrattyHalfPint: The kid is has attitude, that's for sure.