Firion was an orphaned kid who became one of the key fighters for the rebels, helped overthrow The Emperor, killed him when he came back to life after taking over the underworld, and in Dissidia Final Fantasy is a hot-blooded, badass rebel who exhibits mastery of Final Fantasy II'sentire battle system. But he gets seduced by one Lamia Queen, and no one—not even the staff who threw in two Mythology Gags in Dissidia for it—will let him forget it. In addition, thanks to Dissidia Firion will forever be associated with the so-called "wild rose" and his dream of filling the world with roses.
Several people will remember Guy for speaking beaver. He only said it once in game and that's what he is best known for.
Some people don't like Rosa much for the fact she's a Damsel in Distress, being sick with desert fever then getting kidnapped shortly after you cure her. Once you rescue her she stays by Cecil's side for the rest of the game, even when he tells her to stay behind because it's too dangerous.
Kain gets Brainwashedonce, with a period between the Tower of Zot and Sealed Cave where Golbez loses the signal and has to retune it. Somehow that apparently translates into Heel–Face Revolving Door even though he only leaves and rejoins twice.
In the sequel Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, Kain is evil again and Rosa spends most of the plot on the sidelines after fleeing from Baron before Kain kidnaps her. The other characters even wonder "Has Kain been brainwashed again?" Actually no, it's his Evil Counterpart/Enemy Without, the true Kain is known as the Hooded Man and is completely good. Rosa, unfortunately for her, has no such redeeming plot point. Could also be seen as Pandering to the Base—the other female character of the original game, not counting Porom, is Rydia, who is much more popular with the fans than Rosa. While Rosa spends most of the game out of action, Rydia is promoted to main female lead.
The people of Mysidia are still portrayed as Ungrateful Townsfolk among Final Fantasy fans for their behavior. Cecil attacks Mysidia at the beginning of the game under the impostor King Baron's command, realizes that the excuse of Just Following Orders doesn't cut it, and that he needs to be better than that. When Cecil returns later in the story, everyone in Mysidia hates Cecil while he's walking around in Dark Knight armour. Some people berate him, others scream in fear, and some of them even curse Cecil with status effects. Considering what Cecil did last time he was there, this reaction is understandable. But what's not understandable is that the Mysidians keep cursing Cecil and his party even after he's become a Paladin, purged himself of darkness, started fighting alongside them, revealed to be The Chosen One, and has saved the world no less than twice. Fans act like they all keep doing it even though only one, the dancer, actually does. The one that turns Cecil into a toad and the one that poisons him both cease to do so after he is given the assignment to become a Paladin.
Bartz has a few comedic moments of malapropism, other goofiness, and harangues a turtle without realizing it's Sage Ghido so that the Ghido mocks his intelligence for the rest of the game. After he was flanderized from "simple" to "simpleton" in Dissidia Final Fantasy, fans act as though even Bartz in the original game is always acting like a dope when, in truth, he gets his share of Only Sane Man moments.
Lenna being a poison magnet is a running joke among FFV fans. It's mainly the fact that two of the three instances are of her own volition that gets people. However, context says that the first time Lenna gets poisoned is out of desperation to get a Hiryuu to eat a cure for its own illness since she's a Friend to All Living Things, knowing the cure is poisonous to humans. But the fandom generally portrays Lenna as Too Dumb to Live or that she's always getting herself poisoned.
Terra is sometimes remembered as an Actual Pacifist, or as someone who despises violence so strongly that she'll refuse to fight even if there's no other choice. This is based on her scenes when she's found in the World of Ruin, where she struggles with her growing feelings of maternal love for some orphaned children. However, that same game also shows her growing through this mental block and becoming a Martial Pacifist instead, using her strength to protect the people she cares about. Terra's characterization in the Dissidia series turns her into a straight-up Apologetic Attacker, despite the crux of her character development in VI itself revolving around getting over this.
Ask most people what they think of when they think of Sabin, and they'll remark that he "suplexed a train".note This is from a bug that doesn't make the Phantom Train boss immune to Sabin's Suplex attack, meaning that, in-universe, Sabin can lift a train off its track, throw it into the air, and slam it back down. It's been kept in re-releases since it's so popular, though.
Locke's sidequest in the World of Ruin revolves around him trying to find the Phoenix magicite to bring his dead fiancée Rachel back to life. Due to some of the language used during the quest, Locke came off to a few players as a bit creepy and clingy, and being incapable of letting go. But the way some fans hold this over his head, one would think Locke was a necrophiliac.
Despite resolving the majority of his issues and becoming a confident leader by the end of the game, Cloud Strife will always be known as an angsty, navel-gazing introvert. Likewise, Aerith has been painted so heavily with the All-Loving Hero brush that most people forget that she was a spunky, energetic, flirty young woman who fell in love with a shadow of her first boyfriend and frequently caused problems by running off on her own. Interestingly, this creates something of a Hype Backlash, in that Square Enix is often accused of pandering to the extreme version of this, and stated in creation materials for Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children that they characterized Cloud as angsty because they thought fans would be more familiar with such a depiction.
The cross-dressing mission to get in Don Corneo's mansion. Even though it's optional, Robot Chicken, in a sketch about gay video game characters, included Cloud crossdressing and getting in a hot tub with other men in speedos.
Cloud is also misblamed as the cause of a trend of "emo" protagonists in Final Fantasy, sometimes even every brooding RPG protagonist from the release on FFVII on, and every time any character is actually depressed for any reason Cloud tends to get blamed for it. Yet out of all the main Final Fantasy games, only Squall could be considered "emo" in any sense of the word, they both had good reason to be like that, they are not the first of Final Fantasy protagonists to feel perpetually miserable for one reason or another, and most of the subsequent Final Fantasy protagonists are actually pretty chipper most of the time.
Though not as negative as some examples here, Zidane in Final Fantasy IX will always be famous for that one scene—"Ooh, soft!". As well-known among fans of the game as that scene is, groping Garnet really was an accident and he apologized afterwards. He may be a Chivalrous Pervert, but he's more the former than the latter.
If there's one thing Tidus and Yuna from Final Fantasy X will always be remembered by, it will be the infamous laughing scene. What many fail to realize is that the laughter was supposed to sound forced. Even the other characters wonder what is wrong with them. Even Square Enix can't resist mocking this; nearly every Crossover Tidus appears in will feature at least one laughter joke.
In Final Fantasy XII, Vaan asks Fran how old she is, which is insensitive and the entire party chews him out for it, but under the circumstances isn't a bad question (the scene just before implies Fran is over fifty years old, and that Viera live far longer than humans). Additionally, some Alternative Character Interpretation posits that he asked her that question rather than asking her about her possibly painful past in her Hidden Elf Village. Then in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, his opening quote to Shantotto, Prishe and Ultimecia is to ask how old they are, and he asks the same about Cosmos in a storyline scene.
Lightning punches Snow on two separate occasions - in extreme circumstances and while under an enormous amount of emotional stress, likely because it was a) heavily featured in the trailers, b) "awesome," and c) what many players wanted to do at that point, fanfic features her decking Snow full-force at the drop of a hat. They also tend to forget that she defrosted a lot over the course of the story, and she is told point-blank by Fang (whom she also hits) that punching people to relieve her emotional stress is a bad thing that solves exactly zero of their current problems, and she noticeably stops doing so when she realizes the truth in that statement. Dissidia 012 responds as it has with its other characters by portraying her as the fan view of her as super stoic and hostile.
Hope will forever be known as the whiney Mamas Boy with a revenge complex. However, his journey to overcome his irrational and adolescent desire for revenge (a coping mechanism for seeing his mother die before his eyes and not understanding why) is his main character arc, which resolves about halfway through the game.
Snow himself is hated for supposedly having a hero complex and being obsessed with Serah (you know, his fiancée). But one of the first observations made about Snow in-game is that he's "all-talk", and it very quickly becomes clear that Snow is talking big to cover for deeper insecurities, and particularly to avoid facing any unpleasant truths he doesn't wish to consider.
Minfilia is a leader of a group of talented individuals where said talents can help deal with the primals and the empire. Because Minfilia gets captured twice and lacked the ability to fight back, people flanderized her into someone who gets kidnapped all the time like Princess Peach while barking orders at the player character. This is ignoring how in both kidnappings, Minfilia refused to give her captors what they wanted, knowing she could be killed for it, and the fact that Minfilia is the only one willing and able to do the boring political paperwork behind the scenes while the talents of the player character and the rest of her people can be put to good use where they're needed.
Similarly, Alphinaud once dove right into the Glory Hound and tried to get the city state leaders to do what he suggested for the betterment of Eorzea. After some really nasty things went down because of him, he ate a huge slice of Humble Pie and tried to better himself by listening to everyone and actively supporting his allies in the field. Despite his Character Development, people will only remember him for his pre character development days.
Aymeric gets a ton of flack after he shouts at the Warrior of Light and Alphinaud to toss Nidhogg's eyes into the ravine below the Steps of Faith. This would later bite everyone in the ass due to the Ascians retrieving the eyes and giving them to Ilberd, which he summons a primal with. While nobody in the story could have known any of the events afterwards could happen and Aymeric does regret his mistake, many fans still won't let Aymeric live it down.
The Moogles in Heavensward are extremely hated by fans due to how incredibly lazy they are and that they don't even try to hide this, sending players out to do pointless fetch quests. Even though their beast tribe quests introduced later have Moogles that are willing to help out and the ones who don't get hit with Laser-Guided Karma, many people's views on the Moogles are forever soured.
