Basic Trope: A party member introduced later than others never actually makes it into the active party.
- Straight: Barney the Blue Mage is only recruitable half-way through the game, by the time the Player Party is a well-oiled war machine with no openings for new hires. As a result, most players never discover his extensive Character Arc.
- Exaggerated: Barney offers to join the party with zero build-up in the middle of the Final Boss fight.
- Downplayed: By the time Barney is introduced, the party is most likely full, but his unique skill set makes him a better alternative for some builds.
- Justified: The ending of Barney's Companion-Specific Sidequest changes everything about the main quest line—and he knows it, preferring to never let the heroes discover what he knows.
- Barney's skills are required to get through the final level, and many enemies there are weak only to his magic.
- Inverted: The last Non-Player Companion introduced becomes a Required Party Member for the rest of the game.
- Subverted: There is a secret method to recruit Barney very early in the game.
- While he may be lower in strength in most aspects, some of Barney's attacks are too powerful to ignore.
- Turns out that the Final Boss was actually a Disc-One Final Boss and there's at least some dozens hours of gameplay left, which gives enough time for the player to try having Barney in his party.
- Double Subverted: ...but he is a worthless party member at low levels and his character arc doesn't start until where you'd normally recruit him, anyway.
- his attacks are strong, but require far more effort than the usual methods than it's worth, so he is usually ignored.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: Barney can be recruited at different times depending on your choices, and he can either be roughly the same level as everyone else or be found at the very last level effectively worthless or anything in-between
- Averted: All available party members can be recruited in Act I, giving them ample time to develop their skills and characters.
- Enforced: The stakeholders dislike Barney and, failing to have him cut completely, force the devs to place him as late in the game as possible.
- Lampshaded: "Are you sure about this Barney? We've been through a lot that you haven't and the place we're going is very dangerous for folks like you."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Barney offers his services to the party in Act IV, but the party rejects him since they have their group dynamic established by this point and don't want to change it with a latecomer.
- The developers were very wary of the consequences of this trope, and included massive bonuses for training him up, and even locks The Hero's Infinity +1 Sword behind his character arc, meaning that it's worth trying to use him.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Because Barney joins the party so late, he has no clue what's actually going on, and the rest of the party constantly has to explain plot points to him that were established 30 hours of gameplay ago.
- Reconstructed: Faction-Specific Endings is in play. Because Barney joins the party so late, he has no personal stake in the conflict and will follow The Hero no matter who s/he sides with.
Back to Late Character Syndrome
