Do you think FFVI has the most tragic cast in the series?

[Wolf Kanno]

I mean, so many people in VI have tragic backstories and even many of their resolutions in the plot are pretty tear jerkers. Granted they all get better, but considering the sheer volume of drama that goes on, I kind of feel VI might have the most tragic cast of characters in the series.

Terra - Identity crisis and dealing with her inhuman heritage. Not to mention everyone wants to use her for her powers.

Celes - deals with being betrayed by people she trusted and caught in a love triangle with a woman in a coma. The death of her grandfather figure and the idea of the world being on the brink of death drives her to attempt suicide.

Locke - lost the love of his life, which left him guilt stricken, and can't get over her.

Edgar and Sabin - lost their father to the empire and grew estranged from each other with Sabin feeling that Edgar may resent him for turning his back on the family kingdom and their father's dying wish.

Gau was abandoned as a child and forced to grow up in the wild, his own father is a deranged man

Setzer - Lost a good friend and possible lover in an accident and has transformed himself into a reckless fatalist.

Cyan - Lost his home and his wife and child in a single night, even got to see them take a train to the land of the dead and felt angry at himself for not being able to save any of them.

Mog - May be the last moogle left in the world after the WoR.

Relm - lost both her parents when she was really young

Strago - taking care of the daughter of a friend who he knows but is sworn to secrecy not to divulge the identity of her father

Shadow - Betrayed his friend, left his wife and child because he was a fugitive, lost said wife, meets up with his daughter but cannot bring himself to reveal his identity, and most likely stayed behind to die as atonement for his crimes.

To top this all off, the world freaking ends halfway through the game and its partly the party's fault since they not only were manipulated into helping the Empire but then failed to stop the worst case scenario from happening.

[Loony BoB]

Tragic in what has already happened to them? Possibly. Tragic in what happens to them in-game? Possibly that, too. It makes me realise that if they remake VI with full voice acting, I will probably hate the game a lot for all the whining.

But now that I think about it, if you ignore sheer quantity of characters, the other games have a lot of tragedy going on in them, too. D=

[blackmage_nuke]

In terms of dramatics I do feel they have the most variety of tragic stories. It's not uncommon for the whole cast in an FF to have lost someone but in the case of some such as 8 and 10 many of the losses are lumped in (unknown causes/killed by sin) but each loss (aside from maybe Shadow/Strago/Relm and Edgar/Sabin) in FFVI has it's own backstory which is what makes it special.

Terra - Lost her parents due to Kefka
Locke - Rachel lost her memory and died
Edgar/Sabin - dead parents
Cyan - Kefka poisoned everyone
Gau - mother died, father went mad
Celes - potentially kills Cid due to horrible fishing skills
Setzer - Loses Daryl in an Airship accident
Shadow/Relm/Strago - Wife/Mother/Daughter
Mog - Whole species wiped out?
Umaro/Gogo - Who knows?

[chionos]

[E]ach loss (aside from maybe Shadow/Strago/Relm and Edgar/Sabin) in FFVI has it's own backstory which is what makes it special.

Good point. That's really what I love so much about FFVI, all the individual stories intertwining. In the World of Balance, all of these characters are imbalanced, their lives fraught with tragedy and sadness and loneliness, but in the World of Ruin they each find harmony, reconcile to their past or learn to move on.

[Spooniest]

Final Fantasy 6: The only Final Fantasy with a leg up on the blues...

[Wolf Kanno]

Yeah, I think the fact the tragedy is more personalized is why it sticks out for me. It's hard to get sympathy when the characters losses are lumped together as BMN pointed out. It's not like the other games don't have tragic characters, but I feel that its interesting to note how some of the things never get resolved compared to other games. Shadow's story striking the biggest chord. Part of me kind of wishes that some of the darker elements in the original concept had stayed in the game, though it would be interesting to see how it balances with the games more tongue in cheek moments.

[Roogle]

I think that the Final Fantasy VI cast might seem a little more tragic than other casts in the Final Fantasy series only because it has a larger cast. Many characters in Final Fantasy come with some sort of impoverished background or goes through tragic situations to enhance character development, even the perky ones — Yuffie and the wartorn Wutai, Selphie and the fate of Trabia Garden, and Rikku and the destruction fo Home — but given that Final Fantasy VI has a very large cast, it's hard to avoid tragedy. Does that make sense?

[Wolf Kanno]

It's true its also probably due to the fact the playable cast is huge, but I disagree with Yuffie being tragic, her situation isn't really terrible, she just thinks it is, kind of like how Rikku and Selphie are in actual bad situations but their eternal glowing demeanor means it won't be bothering them an hour later in the plot. Relm is technically the spunky girl cliche here, and what I feel is actually tragic about her, is that she doesn't understand the tragedy she is in. She gets one story scene depicting her remorse over losing her parents and you will never see it if you keep Shadow alive. What is tragic is that the player knows the truth about her father and the player is helpless to say or do anything about it for her. Shadow's ambiguous suicide ending doesn't help matters either.

I think it's things that like that are more striking cause the player gets to know more about some of the situations than the cast does. It's the execution of its drama that I feel also helps, though not all characters benefit from it.