History FinalFantasyIX / TropesAToH

* EatTheDog: [[spoiler:Quan's original plan for Vivi. If you find Quan's Dwelling early in disc 2, you can see writings on the wall that say "Six months since I adopted Vivi. Still too small to eat?"]] Thankfully, Quan changed his mind before trying anything carnivorous.

* BellyDancer: The female members of the Cleyran tribe dress up like this to perform a dance [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgSFF6zfjk0 in honor of a sandstorm that protects their settlement]].

** Eiko, a WhiteMage who also wields powerful SummonMagic, is only six years old. {{Justified}} as she's the LastOfHerKind, so the party don't exactly have the option of choosing an older, more experienced summoner to accompany them.

* DropTheHammer: Cinna fights with a hammer. And won't even let anyone use it in construction efforts. Also cross over with {{Companion Cube}}.

* EliteMooks[=/=]SuperpoweredMooks: The black mages.

* AllAccordingToPlan: Subverted by Kuja. He says this trope, almost word-for-word, as his common {{catchphrase}}, but later it's revealed that he wasn't as in control as he thought. (Or, more accurately, it really ''did'' go all according to plan as far as using the heroes was concerned, but he didn't account for [[TheManBehindTheMan his boss predicting his actions]].) Fortunately for Kuja, while his [[TheChessmaster Chessmastery]] needs polish, he plays a damn good game of XanatosSpeedChess.

* CatchPhrase: Zidane: "Do I need a reason to help people?"

* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Zidane, again. Check out the page quote: it's his life motto[=/=]{{Catchphrase}}. He also inspires it in his friends to varying degrees.

** Garnet appears to be this when Tantalus are set to kidnap her, but immediately subverts it when she requests to be kidnapped in order to escape Alexandria. [[spoiler: She then plays the trope straight when she's taken by Zorn and Thorn, who forcibly extract her Eidolons. Queen Brahne then decides that as Garnet is no longer of any use to her, she's to be executed for stealing the royal pendant.]]
** Eiko is kidnapped by [[spoiler: Zorn and Thorn, under Kuja's orders, who also wants to extract her Eidolons. However promptly subverted when Eiko is able to fight off her kidnappers by the time Zidane and the others show up to rescue her.]]

* DistressedDamsel:
** Garnet is rescued around four times throughout the game;
*** Tantalus kidnapping her is actually a rescue-in-disguise as Regent Cid asked that she be taken to Lindblum where he could protect her. While he didn't know what Queen Brahne was up to, he did realise that Garnet could potentially be in danger. However, Garnet was planning on leaving herself, and would have most likely escaped the castle had she not accidentally run into Zidane and Blank who were on their way to kidnap her.
*** After the Prima Vista crashes into the Evil Forest, Garnet is taken captive by one of the plant creatures. Zidane and Steiner fight to rescue her but the creature escapes and takes her to an even bigger plant creature and the ruler of the Evil Forest. Zidane, Steiner, Vivi and Blank then successfully rescue Garnet. As Garnet has been poisoned by the plant creatures, she's genuinely helpless until she's given some medicine.
*** [[spoiler: Garnet returns to Alexandria to confront Queen Brahne about what she's been doing and is promptly taken captive. She's put to sleep by Kuja so Zorn and Thorn can extract her eidolons. After which, Brahne decides that she's no longer of any use to her and that she'll execute her for stealing the royal pendant. Zidane, Steiner, Vivi and Freya then have to rescue Garnet from the castle dungeons before Queen Brahne returns.]]
*** When Alexandria is attacked, [[spoiler: Garnet and Eiko summon Alexander to protect the city. Unfortunately both Alexander and the castle are destroyed by the Invincible airship lurking in the sky above. As the castle crumbles, Garnet ends up falling amongst the rubble only for Zidane to come swinging in on a rope to save her.]]
** Eiko ends up getting kidnapped twice;
*** Eiko is briefly taken hostage by Lani, who has figured out that she's part of Zidane and Garnet's party. She demands that Garnet hands over her neckflace for Eiko's safety, [[spoiler: but Amarant interrupts at the last minute as he doesn't condone kidnapping.]]
*** [[spoiler: After realising that Eiko is also a summoner, Kuja has her kidnapped by Zorn and Thorn so they can extract her Eidolons too, despite the fact that she's too young and this could easily kill her. While Zidane and the others rush to her rescue, it's Eiko's beloved Mog who saves her.]]

* ArmorOfInvincibility: The Tin Armor, which can only be acquired by defeating a BonusBoss and having him synthesize it from two items, one of which is incredibly common and the other of which can only be acquired by doing a lengthy sidequest.

* BonusBoss: There aren't a lot, but as is typical for a ''Final Fantasy'', the ones that are there are extremely challenging. These include the Tantarian, a demon hidden in the pages of a book in Alexandria Castle's library, [[spoiler:Master Quale]] (for catching 99 frogs), Hades (hidden behind some scenery in the final dungeon), and Ozma (a mysterious entity with the highest stats in the game and unique ATB scripting).

** Defeating Ozma, the toughest BonusBoss in the game, earns you the Strategy Guide, which does nothing but congratulate you when pressing Select over it.

** There's a BonusBoss in Alexandria Castle's library, [[http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Tantarian Tantarian]]. If you beat this Boss, you will be rewarded with the Running Shoes, an accessory that teaches Auto-Haste status on your party. It's possible to fight Tantarian as early as Disc 2, although he would certainly be a challenge then.

* ExploitedImmunity: [[BlackMage Vivi]]'s most powerful spell is Doomsday, which inflicts [[CastingAShadow shadow damage]] on all allies and enemies on the field. Equipping your characters with gear that absorbs shadow will cause them to be healed by the spell instead. The BonusBoss Ozma also tries this, but it's possible to invert it: it has Doomsday in its arsenal and normally absorbs shadow damage, but one sidequest rewards you by making it weak to shadow instead, so if it does use the spell, it'll harm itself.

** The hidden BonusBoss gets a free turn every time you take one of yours - specifically, its ATB bar instantly fills whenever you input a command, and ''it'' gets to use its command first. The only way to avoid this is to input commands during its casting animations.

** When the party enters Memoria, they're suddenly thrust into a battle with Nova Dragon. While its appearance makes ''some'' sense when you know it's name is a literal translation of [[BonusBoss Shinryu]], and Memoria is very similar to [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV the Interdimensional Rift]], it still comes out of nowhere with no foreshadowing and plays no role in the story besides an obligatory boss before you can enter the final dungeon.

** Purpose of the {{Fairy Battle}}s. One of the more important sidequests is giving certain "friendly" creatures the specific gems they ask for. You're awarded a considerable amount of AP (requiring for mastering abilities), a clue to the next friendly in the chain, and in the later part of the chain, [[ChainOfDeals the gem that the next creature will want]]. Meeting and giving all of them what they want makes the BonusBoss easier by making it targetable by normal attacks and making it take damage from one of its own attacks instead of getting healed by it.

* HelpfulMook: Give certain rare enemies a particular item and they grant a large amount of [[ExperienceMeter AP]]. Plus, find and "help" them all, and [[spoiler:BonusBoss Ozma becomes vulnerable to Shadow-elemental magic, meaning when he uses only such spell that hits both parties, he damages himself instead of healing himself. He also becomes targettable by normal physical attacks.]]

** Cinna, Blank and Marcus. Cinna joins for the first two fights of the game, and earns the distinctions of "lowest attack", "lowest defence", and generally "crappiest character." Blank also joins for the first few fights, leaves for a while, then comes back for the Plant Brain boss fight before getting turned to stone. Marcus is around for the same fights as Blank and Cinna, but he rejoins later when Dagger and Steiner split up from the main group. He's a Zidane clone, with slightly higher attack. (In fact, that last sentence applies to all three.) However, some of these guests transfer their stats to permanent party members (Blank and Marcus carry over to Amarant and Eiko respectively). Leveling with them makes future party members that much more powerful.

* HarmlessFreezing: The Frozen status effect which results in a OneHitKill if the frozen character then receives a physical attack. They can be thawed out with a fire-based attack too.