LogFAQs > #895396182

27. Ramza Beoulve (Final Fantasy Tactics)

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/8/83/Ramza1.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/320/height/320?cb=20111202154441

"I had lived my life the only way I had known. But when the pillars of that life came crashing down, I did not stand to watch them fall.
I turned, and walked away."

Ramza is the Final Fantasy equivalent of someone who is too good for this world. He reminds me a lot of Eleanor Hume. Just trying to do the right thing despite society betraying his expectations again and again. Unfortunately for Ramza, the world of Final Fantasy Tactics is not one that rewards altruism.

While Delita is the commoner-turned-king who became a public hero through a series of betrayals, Ramza is the noble-turned-heretic who became a public menace by being betrayed many times. Lots of people are more than happy to use Ramza as a scapegoat - and unfortunately, it's all too easy. While he's part of the nobility, he's also a bastard, and in that sort of society people are always waiting for the bastard to try and pull some shady shit. Everyone from the church, to his family, to his friends, and even people he's helped before barely hesitate before throwing Ramza under the bus. While he does slowly gather a group of fiercely loyal allies aware of his true nature, they're still small in number considering Ramza's enemies are...everyone else.

What makes Ramza so endearing, though, is how above all of this he is. Ramza isn't cold or unfeeling but he also never, ever hesitates to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. His inner strength is the stuff of legends. The most 'Ramza' thing he does all game is during the extremely memorable church conversation between him and Delita, his former best friend. Immediately after Delita states that he wouldn't hesitate to kill Ramza, Ramza asks for them to work together in a genuine offer that is totally free of subterfuge or malice. Delita may have discarded their friendship, but Ramza hasn't and never will.

Unlike everyone else in the game, Ramza doesn't care about birth or background. That's why, when the political infighting and Zodiac summoning weirdness starts to results in a lot of...collateral damage (a.k.a. people without power getting stepped on), Ramza is the one going out of his way to help. Ramza's name is so ruined by this that a guy who tried to redeem his reputation decades after Ramza's death was burned at the stake as a heretic. Despite all that, I don't doubt for a second that Ramza would have changed anything he did. There's a reason that Final Fantasy Tactics ends with Delita, newly-christened king and hero of Ivalice, thinking enviously about the choices Ramza made versus the ones he did.
---

Black Turtle did a pretty good job.