Character Name: Garnet til Alexandros XVII / Dagger Character Series: Final Fantasy IX Character Age: 16 during gameplay, assuming 17 by the end of it Background:Garnet @ FFWiki
Personality: At first glance, Garnet til Alexandros XVII is royalty through and through. She has the beauty and the surface demeanor to suit the role; she is fairly mild-mannered and polite at all times. However, through the time she spent with Zidane and the rest of the team, Dagger has rounded out quite a bit in personality. In the beginning, she was the picture image of a sheltered princess, albeit with an undiscovered adventurous streak. Gradually, she began to take in everything about the world around her outside the walls of Alexandria Castle, and her true self started to shine through.
One thing about Dagger is that she is insatiably curious. As a child, she found academic studying as boring as any little girl might, but the ever-present love of learning about the world she exhibited persisted even into her teens. With that curiosity, too, comes an almost devious intelligence that's perfectly capable of taking what she learns and applying it resourcefully, and this trait has displayed itself a number of times throughout the game. Occasionally, her ideas may not seem befitting of a princess (drugging her comrades' food with sleeping weed in an effort to be able to leave Lindblum without trouble, and concealing herself in a bag of putrid Gysahl Pickles to sneak past gate guards, for example), but it suggests that the royal side of her is only one part of her personality, deeply ingrained but not even close to the whole.
Though she has trained herself to know when and how to speak formally and informally, and has picked up on the art of sarcasm and snark just as quickly, the part of Dagger that was reared to be Queen of Alexandria one day doesn't die so easily. Her sense of duty and responsibility tie her to both "worlds" at once -- the world of Queen Garnet, and the world of Dagger, Zidane's devoted friend(-slash-love-interest). She cares about both deeply, so deeply that it can cause trouble for her when she's inevitably torn between them. In the end, she'll always do what she feels is right for everyone, but such decisions aren't always easy to make when both options seem equally bad and good at the same time.
And with that mention of seemingly-perpetual juxtaposition she's locked in between her friends and life as a human being, and her duty to her kingdom, comes the topic of one of Dagger's biggest and most obvious facets: her sense of responsibility. Dagger is the type of person who holds herself fiercely, furiously to blame for whatever might go wrong; even accidents, even things no one could have predicted or prevented. She has an extremely strong sense of guilt that often overpowers rational thought at first, coupled with her occasional feeling of helplessness and powerlessness when it comes to supporting the people she loves. She has an arbitrary sense of caring for everyone around her, be they family, friend, or... love interest; so when those people she cares about most, the ones she most wants to support and protect, have problems that can't be solved, Dagger takes it very, very hard. She has difficulty giving up on such things, and just letting them die -- more often than not, she'll resort to blaming and chastising herself. She'll do the same thing when others go out of their way to help her in turn, although she understands much better now that it's a vital part of friendship. It never stops that tiny, nagging feeling of "this person is going to all this trouble for me, when I should be able to do it myself", though. Her thought processes when it comes to people actually taking a fall or two (or twelve, in some cases) for her sake are similar, as well -- the line between "couldn't do anything" and "didn't do anything" doesn't always separate so cleanly for Dagger, and she's hardly beyond what-ifs and shouldering the guilt for one or both, even if it's not objectively necessary.
She's learned over time that strength doesn't always have to be in taking burdens or blows for others, though. Dagger and Zidane in particular have a mutual loyalty to each other that manifests most strongly in their emotional support for one another. Like he was there for her when she clammed up tight, verbally and emotionally, after the destruction of Alexandria, she was able to do the same for him when he showed every sign of losing his way and giving up later on. She considers everyone she's traveled with a friend of some sort, though -- Dagger respects Vivi for his own emotional tenacity in the face of something so terrifying as the painful truth about himself and his origins; she has always respected and continues to respect Steiner for his willingness to put himself on the line to protect her and others; she respects Beatrix for being able to turn away from a path she found was no longer worth traveling, even if it was a difficult decision; she respects Freya for pushing on with honor and dignity no matter how many more precious things she lost by doing so; she respects Eiko for having been able to recognize what was right in her heart and stick with it, even at such a young age; she even finds things to like about the quirky, whimsical Quina and the standoffish Amarant. Yet, her own sense of self-worth occasionally suffers in the face of seeing these people and many more put themselves at risk in all different ways, directly or indirectly for her sake. Dagger would much rather spare them the heavy burden of the weight of her important life on their shoulders, and so finally resolves to use the power of her Eidolons to protect the things she cares about after regaining the ability.
Being through what she has certainly has its upsides, though. For one thing, Dagger is a sweet person at heart, and does her best to treat everyone with the same equal, pleasant consideration. As dedicated as she is to fretting about her friends, she's also far from a pushover when it comes to interacting with others. Unlike the stereotypical princess, she doesn't take kindly to being treated as a doormat, or regarded solely for her position -- sitting on her hands is the one thing she absolutely refuses to accept, a positive byproduct of the enormous guilt complex she harbors. She doesn't tolerate being spoken down to, or simply spoken to like someone's stringing her along for their own purposes. Not only is she easily smart enough to pick up on these things, but she's not afraid to speak her mind about them, either... in her own, refined way. Dagger's naturally inclined to be as civil as possible and to refrain from insults and nastiness, which is only further strengthened by her royal upbringing, but she still carries a will of adamantium that is not easily forced to bend. And if you try to trample it, you're crossing the line. Similarly, this strength of will is another reason she and Zidane tend to get alone so well: Zidane is good-naturedly playful and flirtatious, and although his advances usually slide right off Dagger or get subtly rebuffed, she occasionally manages to surprise him (case in point: shocking the hell out of him by agreeing immediately to get "married" at Conde Petie in a cultural ceremony so they could move past the blocked Sanctuary). Likewise, she can usually tell when Zidane's not quite himself without even consciously thinking about it, and won't let up until he opens up to her.
Overall, Dagger is a stellar example of a princess (now a queen, that is) who can't be forcibly set into the usual princess mold from fairy tales of old. While she will never really shake off those sophisticated, contained, and occasionally naive princess tendencies, she'll also never succumb to the stereotype of royals who would rather take the easy way out of being kidnapped and rescued by the knight in shining armor -- if her willingness to be kidnapped of her own volition to save someone she loved wasn't enough to display her lack of willingness to sit on her hands and wait for help to arrive, then the way she decided to carry on in spite of the traumatic destruction of her own kingdom and the emotional turmoil it thrust her into absolutely is. It's all summed up quite nicely with only a few words in her defining character quote: "Someday I will be Queen, but I will always be myself."
Garnet til Alexandros XVII | Final Fantasy IX | Not reserved (by... me, anyway)
Personal Journal:
Contact Info: kaleidobeam [at] gmail.com / HighinQusitor (AIM) / quko (Plurk)
Other Characters Played: N/A
Preferred Housing: RANDOMIZE ME, CAP'N.
Character Name: Garnet til Alexandros XVII / Dagger
Character Series: Final Fantasy IX
Character Age: 16 during gameplay, assuming 17 by the end of it
Background: Garnet @ FFWiki
Personality: At first glance, Garnet til Alexandros XVII is royalty through and through. She has the beauty and the surface demeanor to suit the role; she is fairly mild-mannered and polite at all times. However, through the time she spent with Zidane and the rest of the team, Dagger has rounded out quite a bit in personality. In the beginning, she was the picture image of a sheltered princess, albeit with an undiscovered adventurous streak. Gradually, she began to take in everything about the world around her outside the walls of Alexandria Castle, and her true self started to shine through.
One thing about Dagger is that she is insatiably curious. As a child, she found academic studying as boring as any little girl might, but the ever-present love of learning about the world she exhibited persisted even into her teens. With that curiosity, too, comes an almost devious intelligence that's perfectly capable of taking what she learns and applying it resourcefully, and this trait has displayed itself a number of times throughout the game. Occasionally, her ideas may not seem befitting of a princess (drugging her comrades' food with sleeping weed in an effort to be able to leave Lindblum without trouble, and concealing herself in a bag of putrid Gysahl Pickles to sneak past gate guards, for example), but it suggests that the royal side of her is only one part of her personality, deeply ingrained but not even close to the whole.
Though she has trained herself to know when and how to speak formally and informally, and has picked up on the art of sarcasm and snark just as quickly, the part of Dagger that was reared to be Queen of Alexandria one day doesn't die so easily. Her sense of duty and responsibility tie her to both "worlds" at once -- the world of Queen Garnet, and the world of Dagger, Zidane's devoted friend(-slash-love-interest). She cares about both deeply, so deeply that it can cause trouble for her when she's inevitably torn between them. In the end, she'll always do what she feels is right for everyone, but such decisions aren't always easy to make when both options seem equally bad and good at the same time.
And with that mention of seemingly-perpetual juxtaposition she's locked in between her friends and life as a human being, and her duty to her kingdom, comes the topic of one of Dagger's biggest and most obvious facets: her sense of responsibility. Dagger is the type of person who holds herself fiercely, furiously to blame for whatever might go wrong; even accidents, even things no one could have predicted or prevented. She has an extremely strong sense of guilt that often overpowers rational thought at first, coupled with her occasional feeling of helplessness and powerlessness when it comes to supporting the people she loves. She has an arbitrary sense of caring for everyone around her, be they family, friend, or... love interest; so when those people she cares about most, the ones she most wants to support and protect, have problems that can't be solved, Dagger takes it very, very hard. She has difficulty giving up on such things, and just letting them die -- more often than not, she'll resort to blaming and chastising herself. She'll do the same thing when others go out of their way to help her in turn, although she understands much better now that it's a vital part of friendship. It never stops that tiny, nagging feeling of "this person is going to all this trouble for me, when I should be able to do it myself", though. Her thought processes when it comes to people actually taking a fall or two (or twelve, in some cases) for her sake are similar, as well -- the line between "couldn't do anything" and "didn't do anything" doesn't always separate so cleanly for Dagger, and she's hardly beyond what-ifs and shouldering the guilt for one or both, even if it's not objectively necessary.
She's learned over time that strength doesn't always have to be in taking burdens or blows for others, though. Dagger and Zidane in particular have a mutual loyalty to each other that manifests most strongly in their emotional support for one another. Like he was there for her when she clammed up tight, verbally and emotionally, after the destruction of Alexandria, she was able to do the same for him when he showed every sign of losing his way and giving up later on. She considers everyone she's traveled with a friend of some sort, though -- Dagger respects Vivi for his own emotional tenacity in the face of something so terrifying as the painful truth about himself and his origins; she has always respected and continues to respect Steiner for his willingness to put himself on the line to protect her and others; she respects Beatrix for being able to turn away from a path she found was no longer worth traveling, even if it was a difficult decision; she respects Freya for pushing on with honor and dignity no matter how many more precious things she lost by doing so; she respects Eiko for having been able to recognize what was right in her heart and stick with it, even at such a young age; she even finds things to like about the quirky, whimsical Quina and the standoffish Amarant. Yet, her own sense of self-worth occasionally suffers in the face of seeing these people and many more put themselves at risk in all different ways, directly or indirectly for her sake. Dagger would much rather spare them the heavy burden of the weight of her important life on their shoulders, and so finally resolves to use the power of her Eidolons to protect the things she cares about after regaining the ability.
Being through what she has certainly has its upsides, though. For one thing, Dagger is a sweet person at heart, and does her best to treat everyone with the same equal, pleasant consideration. As dedicated as she is to fretting about her friends, she's also far from a pushover when it comes to interacting with others. Unlike the stereotypical princess, she doesn't take kindly to being treated as a doormat, or regarded solely for her position -- sitting on her hands is the one thing she absolutely refuses to accept, a positive byproduct of the enormous guilt complex she harbors. She doesn't tolerate being spoken down to, or simply spoken to like someone's stringing her along for their own purposes. Not only is she easily smart enough to pick up on these things, but she's not afraid to speak her mind about them, either... in her own, refined way. Dagger's naturally inclined to be as civil as possible and to refrain from insults and nastiness, which is only further strengthened by her royal upbringing, but she still carries a will of adamantium that is not easily forced to bend. And if you try to trample it, you're crossing the line. Similarly, this strength of will is another reason she and Zidane tend to get alone so well: Zidane is good-naturedly playful and flirtatious, and although his advances usually slide right off Dagger or get subtly rebuffed, she occasionally manages to surprise him (case in point: shocking the hell out of him by agreeing immediately to get "married" at Conde Petie in a cultural ceremony so they could move past the blocked Sanctuary). Likewise, she can usually tell when Zidane's not quite himself without even consciously thinking about it, and won't let up until he opens up to her.
Overall, Dagger is a stellar example of a princess (now a queen, that is) who can't be forcibly set into the usual princess mold from fairy tales of old. While she will never really shake off those sophisticated, contained, and occasionally naive princess tendencies, she'll also never succumb to the stereotype of royals who would rather take the easy way out of being kidnapped and rescued by the knight in shining armor -- if her willingness to be kidnapped of her own volition to save someone she loved wasn't enough to display her lack of willingness to sit on her hands and wait for help to arrive, then the way she decided to carry on in spite of the traumatic destruction of her own kingdom and the emotional turmoil it thrust her into absolutely is. It's all summed up quite nicely with only a few words in her defining character quote: "Someday I will be Queen, but I will always be myself."