Top 30 Final Fantasy Villains - #8

#8 - Caius Ballad
(Final Fantasy XIII-2)

I'll just come right out and say it: I don't like the Final Fantasy XIII games. Even putting aside the severe linearity issues of the first game, the storytelling, aesthetic, and worldbuilding just felt... off. However, I freely admit that not only did XIII-2 have a great villain, but that villain ranks in the upper echelon of Final Fantasy villains.


Caius is the bodyguard to a prophetess named Yuel. She had the power to see the future, but had this bad habit of dying whenever she had a vision. When that happened, Caius was sent to another timeline to protect that timeline's Yuel until she inevitably had a vision and died, at which point he'd wind up in the next timeline, and so on. Eventually Caius went kinda nuts, and he decided "Hey, if she doesn't have any visions of the future, she won't die. And she can't see the future if there IS no future!" And so he set out into the space-time continuum with the goal of breaking it beyond repair.


Despite his unbelievably traumatic origin, he comes off as very cool and composed throughout the game. His design is a little busy, but still has a certain menace to it. He's insanely powerful, with some of the harder battles of Final Fantasy XIII, and his theme music enhance his presence whenever he's around, helped by some top-notch voice work courtesy of Liam O'Brien. All these would guarantee him having a place somewhere in this list, but none of those are that special either, aside from his unique backstory. No, what kicks him up to the Top 10 is one simple, undeniable fact:


He wins.

And no, I don't mean he achieved his goal but was defeated. No, I mean he WINS, as in, Thanos at the end of Infinity War levels of winning. And yeah, since this is the middle of a trilogy his victory doesn't really last, but for one shining moment at the end of time, the space-time continuum was broken beyond repair, the mortal and divine realms were in complete disarray and bleeding into one another, the goddess Etro was dead and he was kicking back on her throne, celebrating how his and Yuel's curses are over and gloating about how the heroes ensured his victory without knowing it.


Even aside from that, a villain whose goal is to destroy all of existence is very difficult to make sympathetic or relatable, but in the case of Caius, it's easy to see how he became so unhinged and so desperate that he'd be willing to sacrifice the entire world to free himself and Yuel from their fates. Which is interesting, when you consider the main theme of Final Fantasy XIII is defying one's destiny. Here Caius seems to reflect the dark side of that sentiment, where escaping his fate at any cost suddenly becomes a bad thing when that "cost" is paid by everyone else. It's actually kind of fascinating.


In the end, Caius is a credible threat with an engaging backstory, and is elevated from good to great by his victory. He stands out as one of the best aspects of this series' most controversial and contested entry, and a really good villain overall.