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#21 - General Beatrix
(Final Fantasy IX)
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I was honestly on the fence about putting Beatrix here, since she does completely reform later in the game, but the fact remains that for the earlier parts of Final Fantasy IX, she is firmly on the enemy side and is one heck of a powerful adversary.
General Beatrix is the captain of the military of Alexandria under the command of Queen Brahne. Her Alexandrian soldiers are rivals to the Knights of Pluto, led by Adelbert Steiner, who are generally looked down upon by everyone in Alexandria. She carries out Brahne’s increasingly brutal orders, believing it to be for the good of the kingdom, but once she discovers that there is another force at play manipulating her, she begins to evolve into the honorable knight she was supposed to be.
The thing that stands out about Beatrix the most is how utterly powerful she is. The main characters fight against her a few times, and every single time, she absolutely mops the floor with the heroes. In fact, the party never actually never gets a definitive victory over her, since Beatrix joins the side of good before that happens. Of course, she also falls into the typical trap of becoming significantly weaker once she’s actually playable, but hey, them’s the breaks.
However, she does suffer from having a pretty lackluster motivation for her evil actions aside from her motivations. But that is more than made up for by her character arc of redemption, where she begins to question the motivations of her queen, which coincides with her coming to terms with her relationship with her rival Steiner.
She is very reminiscent of another fan-favorite character, General Leo from Final Fantasy VI, but he didn’t make the cut on the grounds that he wasn’t even a villain. True, Leo worked for the bad guys, but he himself never actually fought against the party. Beatrix, however, does, and on top of having the same sense of honor and chivalry and a more complete arc, wins her spot on the list. But she’s not the last Final Fantasy IX villain we’ll see, but that’s not for a while.
Next up is #20, and this is where the villains on this list start getting REALLY good.
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