Rydia

Legacy

Rydia is often spoken about in terms of being the "best" or "first" summoner in the Final Fantasy series. While doubtless true, this isn't really the whole story. Rydia's legacy is not limited to a job class, but spans a whole personality/biographical type. Each successive game in the series has tended to draw on its precursors, and there are many characters in later games that are clearly influenced by, if not outright modeled on, Rydia.

As a child whose abilities lie primarily in the realm of the magical, she is the predecessor to characters such as Relm of FFVI and Eiko of FFIX (particularly as Eiko is also a summoner). Child characters are a relative rarity in the series, for obvious reasons - one does not generally think of children as particularly suited to battle. Rydia stands out as the first such character in the series - though she is only a child for part of the game, it remains an important part of her role. As a child she possesses an innocence and desire to do good that is not complicated by the personal weaknesses that many adults in the series possess. This quality is later echoed by other children in the games, including Relm and Eiko and minor characters such as FFVIII's Ellone (who, even after growing up, still retains her childlike innocence, much like Rydia).

Garnet, also of FFIX, is perhaps more reminiscent of Rydia once grown. Garnet, Eiko and Rydia also share another important quality - their villages were both destroyed when they were young, leaving them as the sole surviving members of their respective tribes. Aeris from FFVII fits into a similar situation, being the last surviving Cetra (also a tribe with magical affiliations). And FFVI's Terra is also the only one of her kind, half-human, half-Esper - making her not quite a summoner, as no such class exists in FFVI, but the closest possible alternative. Rydia again shows herself to be an archetype, this time as the only surviving member of a magically talented race. This seems like it would be an unusual situation, but it fits into at least four (and perhaps more) games in the series (underscoring just how much Square draws on its previous games when creating new ones).

It is Rydia's impact on the series as a whole that makes her one of its most interesting characters. Part of it is the luck of the draw - she just happened to come first. But if she hadn't come first, it is likely that many of the abovementioned characters would have turned out very differently. The fact is that Rydia was appealing enough, to the developers and to fans, that aspects of her personality and life have been reused time and again throughout the series. And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, that says a tremendous lot about what sort of character Rydia is.