• Happy Birthday Garnet!



    *Game spoilers if you haven't played*


    On January 15th 1800, Garnet celebrates her 16th birthday. That's not the only thing worth celebrating though! January 15th also marks the beginning of Final Fantasy IX and most likely the end as well, as we see Garnet celebrating her 17th birthday.

    When we first meet Garnet, as well as a few others in our ragtag group of heroes, Garnet is having her birthday celebration while watching her favourite play, 'I Want to be Your Canary'. As we know, she then dons the traditional White Mage robe and makes a break for it with the bumbling Steiner not too far behind. After Zidane agrees to kidnap her, something he was going to do anyway, the Queen sends a bomb after them and they end up crash landing in Evil Forest, which kickstarts the game.



    As the adventure continues, Garnet changes and grows, while always remaining true to herself. Her first change is to take on the name of 'Dagger' and learn to talk more like the common folk. While not immediately successful, she works hard at blending in and never loses sight in the goal of helping her mother. She begins to learn that the Queen may be even sketchier than she thinks, and even pilots a cargo ship for a little while.

    Upon finally arriving in Lindblum, Garnet's plans take a turn when everyone tries to leave her behind. She's the white mage and they're stupid because you save a ton on potions when you have a white mage but WHATEVER. Looking at you, Zidane. Anyway, so she drugs everyone and runs off. She then illegally crosses the border while hidden in a giant bag of stinky pickles. She runs in to Tantalus on the way, fights off a Black Waltz, and even agrees to help get the supersoft for them to rescue Blank.



    Things get even more eventful for poor Garnet when she's kidnapped in her own home and has her Eidolons forcibly extracted from her and used as tools of war. She finds Ramuh, who agrees to help her, only to witness Linblum be hit by one of her former summons. As the game progresses, she gets more and more summons, finally coming in to her own as a summoner.

    The group later ventures to somewhere special: Her home. Garnet begins to remember about her past and even makes friends/rivals with a local summoner goal who can teach her more about her heritage. Afterwards, things shortly go south yet again (poor Garnet) as her mother is killed and she's stuck inheriting the throne. Despite her best efforts, Alexandria is soon destroyed and Garnet loses her voice after all of the trauma she's suffered.



    I won't go further in to the whole game, but things get better and Garnet even gets an awesome haircut to help mark her growth in becoming the strong, dedicated woman we always knew she was deep down. Garnet goes through a lot during Final Fantasy IX and she shows us that no matter what life (and feminine half-naked men) throw our way, we can go on to thrive. It takes a full year for Garnet to finally get all of her closure, but she does, and it's magical.

    Happy birthday Garnet!



    This article was originally published in forum thread: Happy Birthday Garnet! started by Pumpkin View original post
    Comments 3 Comments
    1. maybee's Avatar
      maybee -
      Happy Birthday Princess Garnet ! If only we knew the date of your monkey boyfriend's birthday so we could celebrate that too
    1. Freya's Avatar
      Freya -
      Happy birthday Princess Garnet!
    1. Ayen's Avatar
      Ayen -
      Happy birthday, you sexy beast you <3
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