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"Disclaimer": I'm new here, so I'm not sure if this topic belongs here or not, or if it's been posted before.

Is it just me, or does a main character have to die in each of the Final Fantasies? We have

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Tellah in FF2/4j, Galuf in FF5, Leo in FF3/6j, Aeris in FF7...

Are there any more, and why is this the case?

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

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Close, but it'd be better in Other Square Games since it pertains to gaming, but FF more specifically.

Anyway, I think it makes sense that characters die...I mean, you can't expect to go destroy a mega villain without losing people along the way.

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They kind of stopped for later final fantasies though, it seems. FF8 only had six characters so it'd be weird if one of the main ones died, FF9 had eight and some parts of the game actually revolved around there being eight (four in the desert palace, four in oeilvert), and FFX probably wouldn't have worked as well with six characters. Seven seemed like a good number for it and its battle system.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

FFVIII didn't really have one, but the closest it got was

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Raine. She wasn't directly important to the story, but was extremely important to the backstory.
Ellone might have died. Come to think of it, where the heck did she go? I don't remember seeing her in the ending FMV

FFIX had

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Blank, but he comes back.
Brahne and (probably) Kuja die, too, but they weren't "allies" until their dying moment
If all else fails, Vivi is the character death

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 31st October 2003 13:49)

FFVIII didn't really have one, but the closest it got was

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Raine. She wasn't directly important to the story, but was extremely important to the backstory.
Ellone might have died. Come to think of it, where the heck did she go? I don't remember seeing her in the ending FMV

Well..

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Ellone appears after Laguna is at the grave of Raine, he turns around and sees her and she smiles and waves. And he goes over to her or whatever.

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The clouds ran away, opened up the sky
And one by one I watched every constellation die
And there I was frozen, standing in my backyard
Face to face, eye to eye, staring at the last star
I should've known, walked all the way home
To find that she wasn't here, I'm still all alone

-Atmosphere "Always Coming Back Home to You"

how come you can't revive tellah, but you can revive stupid edward.
romancing saga 3 handled this problem well, and final fantasy 5 also kinda offered a solution when it showed how galuf continues fighting with 0 HP, when he's wounded, maybe the explanation is that 0 HP means you are wounded, but not dead, still, i wonder how you guys feel about it?

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"FLAELI!!!"
--- Rune Walsh

You nailed it with the Galuf reference. Take Aeris for example. Sure, if she reaches 0 HP she "dies", by our terms, but in reality she is just wounded. However, Sephiroth does even more than that and actually literally kills her.

I think it's a weird subject. It's like getting shot in FF7-8 and getting 15 damage done to you. You'd think a machine gun would hurt more.

I disagree about a "main" character, as in a playable, permanent character, dying in most Final Fantasies. It's not always necessary, and when it happens often it becomes a little bit redundant. But there are definitely people dying in every installment to add to the emotion.

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Leo added a more personal kind of hatred for Kefka. Sure, the player feels the characters' pain, but to see Leo get helplessly killed adds to it. Same with Aeris. Sure, Sephiroth killed the Shinra prez, among others, but to watch him kill the (again) hopeless Aeris makes us hate him and want to kill him.

This post has been edited by Neal on 1st November 2003 15:37

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Lou: There's a couple of guys fighting down at the aquarium, Chief.
Wiggum: Do they still sell those frozen bananas?
Lou: I think so.
Wiggum: Let's roll.

Only I and III have the characters actually die in battle (II might. Not sure). The rest of the games have you wounded in IV-VI and KO'ed in VII on up.

Quote (Jlombardi13 @ 1st November 2003 00:16)

But there are definitely people dying in every installment to add to the emotion.

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Leo added a more personal kind of hatred for Kefka. Sure, the player feels the characters' pain, but to see Leo get helplessly killed adds to it. Same with Aeris. Sure, Sephiroth killed the Shinra prez, among others, but to watch him kill the (again) hopeless Aeris makes us hate him and want to kill him.

But when you have characters like

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Tella and Galuf

go down in a blaze of glory, their popularity goes up 10-fold.

This post has been edited by Neal on 1st November 2003 15:37

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Merged two similiar topics. Please, when a topic about Final Fantasy death was started like two days earlier, don't start another one about Final Fantasy death when they fit pretty well together. Also, this caused two double-post instances, so posts have been edited to combine them.

This post has been edited by Neal on 1st November 2003 15:38

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

I just wonder: when does it count that a character (playable or nonplayable) is "dead"? Does it count when that character has 0 HP or not? Or what has to happen?

Edit: And has anyone thought up Crono from CT? What happens to him, anyways?

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 1st November 2003 18:01

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 1st November 2003 12:52)

I just wonder: when does it count that a character (playable or nonplayable) is "dead"?  Does it count when that character has 0 HP or not?  Or what has to happen?

Edit: And has anyone thought up Crono from CT?  What happens to him, anyways?

HP is the numerical measurement of how much physical abuse your characters can take before they collapse.

Death is like death here.

As for Crono,

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his body exploded, so yeah, dead.

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 1st November 2003 13:52)

Edit: And has anyone thought up Crono from CT? What happens to him, anyways?

Well, there is a whole big sidequest thing that you can complete to bring Chrono back from the dead. In all honesty, I think that it is well worth bringin' the dude back.

And on death in video games in general, I think it makes it seem more realistic.
In every real life battle there are some that die, some that live. That makes the video game seem so much more realistic because it has aspects of real life in them.

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..DDR..Maine..
..Hikaroo-chan no Deviantart..

<Tiddles> And I love how people suggest "Why not call it my great name?????" when their name is clearly the worst thing ever.
<Tiddles> "How about ; Mozilla Xplorer & Mozilla Xpress."
<Tiddles> How about you die in a fire?

when a character passes away in any game, it draws the player to get emotionally attached to the game and like it more.

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|\Bob/|

Dealing out the agony within
charging hard and no one's gonna give in
Living on your knees, conformity
or dying on your feet for honesty
Inbred, our bodies work as one
bloody, but never cry submission
Following our instinct not a trend
go against the grain until the end...

I rather enjoyed the way that Crono died and had the reviving sidequest. It was refreashing in te way that wether you were fond of Crono or not, you had the choice of bringing him back.

Leo, dispite my sadness of him being killed, it made it for a better story.

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At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

You'd find a plot more interesting with playable characters passing away or supporting characters that were important.

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Tellah FF4, Palom and Porom FF4 for a little while, Yang FF4 I thought he was a dead goose, Galuf FF5 went out like a King, Leo FF6 Went out like a true warrior, Cid FF6 if you kill him with fish

I also found that the reason FF8(possibly) wasn't that popular because the game had a happier ending than its predeccesor FF7

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FF7 Aeris gets the chop, FF8 Rinoa and Squall live happily ever after

Quote (Black Mage @ 31st October 2003 21:41)

how come you can't revive tellah, but you can revive stupid edward.

Mostly because Edward never died.

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kame, tortue, tortuga, schildkröte, tartaruga, turtle

"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes."
"Arthur Philip Dent?"
"Yes."
"You're a total knee biter."

I know another character that dies in FF

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In FFX Tidus dies at the very end of the game

Quote (NRH TACTICS MASTER @ 4th November 2003 00:45)

I know another character that dies in FF

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In FFX Tidus dies at the very end of the game

I heard that was debatable.

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

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Well actually vivi doesn't die in FFIX Kuja says that the prototypes of the black mage like vivi live longer than the normal ones meaning the lifespan is realtivly like a human's life span come to think of it. But i wonder how vivi had all those off spring in the end

This post has been edited by Michael Cook on 4th November 2003 22:31

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Quote (Michael Cook @ 4th November 2003 17:29)

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Well actually vivi doesn't die in FFIX Kuja says that the prototypes of the black mage like vivi live longer than the normal ones meaning the lifespan is realtivly like a human's life span come to think of it.  But i wonder how vivi had all those off spring in the end

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The evidence more than points to Vivi dying. He wasn't with his kids, and that was a good-bye letter

This post has been edited by Dark Paladin on 4th November 2003 23:52

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"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 4th November 2003 05:23)

Quote (NRH TACTICS MASTER @ 4th November 2003 00:45)

I know another character that dies in FF

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

In FFX Tidus dies at the very end of the game

I heard that was debatable.

Well, I'm figuring we'll find out about that in

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FFX2

Anyway, characters dying makes the game interesting by establishing consequences. If everyone is unbeatable then why bother fighting an evil villain?

This post has been edited by Ejoty on 4th November 2003 23:49

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Get me off this Disciplinary Committee so I can play any FF except for FF8!!!

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 4th November 2003 05:23)

Quote (NRH TACTICS MASTER @ 4th November 2003 00:45)

I know another character that dies in FF

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In FFX Tidus dies at the very end of the game

I heard that was debatable.

very debatable.

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he doesn't DIE, per se, he's just a dream, and when you kill the dreamer...well, the dream tends to end rather abrubtly. auron died, but he was really already dead, he just lived outside of the farplane.

I remember when I was playing FFVII the first time I thought about this. First you lose Aeris (no big deal for me) then Cloud goes into his little coma, and then when Cid was leader I thought he was going to die in the space launch. The reason was cause I just got there and he was about to take off and I had to go somewhere so I figured he was going alone and die in the collison with Meteor. Luckily I was wrong since I consider him the best character of the game.

Anyways death is a necessity in FF (especially FFX) because it adds that element of drama to the games.

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War is for the participants a test of character; it makes bad men worse and good men better. - Joshua Chamberlain

U sir R a n00b >:-( - Cactuar

You gotta kill someone for the drama and to keep the story interesting. Plus if makes the the hero angry and gives him more of a otive to destoy the villian.

Kill someone for the drama aye . Heh heh

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I thought it was great when Aeris died. She was always annoying and I began laughing. You can call me malicious and cold-hearted if you want, but aeris never caught me off as a good final fantasy character. Sorry out there to all of yall who liked her.

This post has been edited by edge murasame on 14th November 2003 18:47

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I will be the mustard of your doom!

Looks like this was my first thread here. How apt, a thread about character death being necro'd.

I'm a bit surprised no one had yet mentioned FFIII's character death. FFIII had a fixed four-person party, and to my knowledge none of the playable characters up and dies at any point, but you every so often get a fifth character who joins the party, albeit unplayable.

So you have

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Elia, who just appears and then shortly after dies unexpectedly

. FFIII also seemed to be a sort of predecessor to FFIV's having characters in "are they dead?" limbo status, since you have

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Desh jumping into the reactor. I haven't played far enough to know but I hear that he is seen again later in the game, so he doesn't actually die, but gets his dramatic moment nonetheless.

Then again, when this thread was started, FFIII was still not yet available to westerners except in translated NES ROM form. It has since been translated officially and released for DS. That first character I mention in this post now has the official name

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Aria benett

.

...I kinda like the old name more.

--------------------

Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

FFVIII spoilers.

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There are people who think Squall dies when he tries to kill Edea the Galbadian Sorceress. They say he is killed by her magic in the cut scene, the last thing he sees is Rinoa reaching out to him, and the rest of the game is his imagination until the end of the game, where time itself, his time, is at a complete end. The happy ending is almost like a heaven. It certainly explains how he was able to be impaled by massive ice shards and still survive.

The game actually makes a bit more sense if it's played like this. The plot becomes a lot more convoluted after disc 1. I've read people's interpretations of what all the different story points mean to Squall. Almost like a dream. Personally I take the game without the 'Squall dies' interpretation, but it's still quite an interesting take on the game.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 5th November 2003 00:14)

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The evidence more than points to Vivi dying. He wasn't with his kids, and that was a good-bye letter

I...never knew this.

When I played through FFIX, I was only about 12 or 13, really, so I never understood this implication. It went straight over my head.

Having read this post, I just went to find a transcript of the ending, just to see if I could disagree. But, it is pretty irrefutable.

And now I'm genuinely devastated. He's one of my favourite FF characters, and I never knew he died


And Sweet - that FFVIII theory is pretty awesome. I'm not saying I buy it, but I can fully believe it adds a whole new perspective. Bit too Dallas for my liking though, to be honest.

I guess we can now add the characters of XIII to this list as well

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Vanille and Fang become crystal at the climax

...though XIII-2 could well change that, or possibly even add

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Lightning

to the list.

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We apologise for the inconvenience

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What about in FFXIII at the end of the game after you beaten the final boss you get a loooong cutscene like in every other FF game.

[SPOILER]Vannile and that other chick that gets Bahamu turn into a beastly beast and sacrifice they'r life to save the others.

Quote (KasperNinja @ 8th August 2011 08:51)

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What about in FFXIII at the end of the game after you beaten the final boss you get a loooong cutscene like in every other FF game.

[SPOILER]Vannile and that other chick that gets Bahamu turn into a beastly beast and sacrifice they'r life to save the others.

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They don't die. They complete their focus, and turn to crystal, which they can wake up from. That's shown many a time in game. In fact, they both had been crystal already. Heck, they even talk to the rest of the characters post game.

This post has been edited by Dr. Delinquent on 9th August 2011 06:10

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--KHI KHII KH:COM KH:BbS
---SO:FD SO:TTEOT SO:TLH
----DQIII DQVIII
-----DA:O DAII
------VP:S