(Best read in the voice of Shigeru Chiba or Dave Wittenberg.)
Oooooh, new victims! Come over, come over, don't be shy, form an orderly line, I'll be happy to kill you all in good...eh? What? You're here looking for information on me? I'm flattered! I like you. I think I'll kill you last. Maybe. We'll see how I feel later, I might change my mind. Perhaps you even want to join my cult and worship me? If so, you may yet live; the Fanatics' Tower is that way. Huh? Oh, right, tropes.
I am Kefka Palazzo, my friends call me Kefka. When they aren't just shrieking in agony, that is, which is how most of my friends end up reacting to my presence. Well, I call them friends - a more correct term might be "playthings". But I digress. I am a character from the Final Fantasy franchise, specifically Final Fantasy VI. In that world, I was court mage to Emperor Gestahl of the Gestahlian Empire, which by the way, not a very inventive name is it? I thought so too, if you're going to rule the world you need a bit more imagination, which is why I booted that old geezer to his death and decided to make my own claim for power. Empires are boring though, sitting on thrones ordering people around, where's the fun in that?
So, I decided to become a god and use my new powers to rip the world apart. Sure, everyone else was caught in despair or dead, but frankly I think the planet needed that makeover, not enough death and chaos. Trust me, I fixed that, a lot of people died! After that I picked up philosophy as a hobby and pontificated thusly: If death and destruction are inevitable, then creating stuff and living is honestly just pointless fluff that we delude ourselves with... So I spent the next year or so dedicating my life to precision nuking anything and everything that seemed to make people feel compelled to cling to life from atop my tower with my Light of Judgment. You know, so they could come to the same realization as I had and just kill themselves already! And that's when I didn't just fry the humans themselves with the Light just for the heck of it, it's not like I need a reason to kill people.
Its like killing ants with a magnifying glass, except these ants scream when they die. Much more satisfying.
But those pesky heroes had to band together and take me down. They sound like self-help booklets, but... okay, fighting them was a lot of fun, I enjoyed it immensely, but they killed me! ME!! Poor little me died and my fun came to an end. I went down fighting, let me tell you, and I took the source of all magic in the world with me when I went, so even if they won, it was a Bittersweet Ending... plus, it's not like they won't all die sooner or later anyway, with or without my involvement...
So anyway, I was dead, but oh, in your world, I am not forgotten! Why do you think I have this page, because I wanted my name on the page lists? No, I got my own page because some fans and critics consider me to be one of the greatest video game villains of all time! Now, if I am to be honest with you, I'm not quite as famous as that long-haired pretty boy in the black coat. There's no accounting for taste, I suppose. But I'm not jealous, why would I be? If you need a reminder of what I eventually do to chump posers who think I'm going to play second banana to them, just ask Emperor Gestahl...
Aside from my original game, I've appeared in that Dissidia Final Fantasy spin-off and the arcade reboot of it. I also appeared in the rhythm game spin-off of those titles. Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, and Final Fantasy Record Keeper made me a playable character, too. One of my personal favorites, though, is Final Fantasy XIV, I got to appear in the Sigmascape as a Superboss. At last you can behold all my Godly glory in full HD, and they let me bring my "Statue of the Gods" with me for some backup. I've never looked better!
Below are some tropes I collected to show off my accomplishments. Now buzz off, I decided killing you is too boring, I'll let you get a head start, you've got one minute. Sixty... fifty-nine... fifty-eight.
Oh, and before you view me with a variable voice or as some sort of mute, remember the two who have done my Japanese and English voice respectively... Shigeru Chiba and Dave Wittenberg. Those two have done well to portray me in Dissidia I may say. I also must condone my fan Josh Scorcher for his take on my Gleeful Madness.
I could spend hours going on about how great I am, but that's time I could be using to destroy things, so just read these instead.
- Alas, Poor Villain: In Dissidia the first. I couldn't fill my empty heart with hopes, dreams or happiness, so I tried to fill it with destruction, but it was never enough. I died Cry Laughing... Little Terra promised to never let my suffering happen again. I'm almost touched...
- The Bad Guy Wins: It's one of my many claims to fame, thank you. I actually did win, for a while — the heroes were scattered and demoralized, the world was in tatters with civilization struggling to live on, and I reigned from on-high as a god burning the survivors of the apocalypse as I chose. It took a whole year before the heroes got the courage to band together and take me down, during which I was on top of the world.
- Beware the Silly Ones: I'm laughing, I'm giggling, I'm bouncing around making jokes, and in about ten seconds I'm going to fry you alive in your own juices with a blast of lightning because man, won't that be fun? I'm not sure if I have the patience to wait that long though.
- Big Bad: Of Final Fantasy VI, naturally. I began as The Dragon to Emperor Gestahl, but trust me, even before I killed him and took over as main antagonist, I was already doing most of the work.
- Breakout Villain: I only appeared in one game, but I made such an impression that I stand proud as one of the most famous Final Fantasy villains, and some have even called me one of the greatest villains in all of video games! People love me, and I hate them all in kind.
- The Chessmaster: Believe it or not, I showed signs of this. My, shall we say, impeccable fashion sense and demeanor made Gestahl underestimate me and think I'd be easy to control. I exploited Celes's little band breaking into the Magitek research facility to learn about the powers of Magicite, and then used Gestahl's plan to find the Espers to turn a lot of them into it. Finally, I learned about the Warring Triad's powers in secret so I could use them to finally "dethrone" Gestahl. Moral of the story, boys and girls: Don't judge a book by its cover.
- Complete Monster: Once you get to know me, you can see that I am not a nice guy at all. See here for my finest accomplishments!
- Confusion Fu: How I fight in Dissidia, magic attacks that have irregular movements.
- Crazy Is Cool: Especially in Dissidia, I ham up the scenery while throwing out magic that have bizarre movements.
- Creepy Circus Music: My leimotif
combines this trope with a military march, quite appropriate if I do say so myself.
- Creepy Crossdresser: I look stunning with earrings and beads in my hair. I even painted my fingernails purple for Dissidia Final Fantasy!
- Death from Above: As a god my instrument to destroy was the Light of Judgment, a Pillar of Light from the heavens to burn the earth and anyone in its path.
- Depending on the Writer: In the original Japanese game I hailed from, I was a Psychopathic Manchild, silly and comical. Then that Ted Woolsey fellow translated my lines for the English game to emphasize my hatred and cruelty, and the joy I found in tormenting others. This re-imagining of me was so popular it would influence my later appearances in the game's re-release and Dissidia, on both sides of the Pacific.
- Epic Flail: You only have one or two real chances to see it (think the confrontations with me at the Sealed Gate or the Siege of Doma, where I'm in overworld sprite form and not enemy target form), but for simple hand-to-hand combat, I prefer swinging around a chained, big ol' spiked ball of hurt on a stick.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Look, let me be serious for a second and lay it down easy for you. Even if I wasn't around, you're going to die sooner or later, as will everyone you know and love, and everything you love about life will be destroyed or forgotten once you're gone, if it doesn't happen already while you're alive. So what's the point? Why bother living when eventually you're going to die and everything you did in life will amount to nothing? Love, hope, friendship? That's stupid, those things really make your empty life worth living? Don't be ridiculous! Just lay down and let me kill you, it's whats going to end up happening anyway so why fight it?
- Evil Is Burning Hot: My favorite method of destruction is to burn things, and that's saying a lot because I have a lot of different ways to destroy things. Just ask those two soldiers who went all Beavis And Butthead at my Figaro Castle barbecue.
- Evil Laugh: It's my trademark! All together now!
- Evil Sorceror: My magical powers are almost unequaled, even before I started sucking the Triad dry of their godly power.
- Expy: As my white make-up, evil laugh, and penchant for causing destruction and chaos for a quick laugh might have tipped off, I am very similar to The Joker. By the way, great guy, has some brilliant ideas I might steal for myself someday.
- For the Evulz: All the chaos, mayhem, and destruction I cause? I do it just because it's fun to do! I don't have a Freudian Excuse, I'm not out for revenge, I don't have any delusions that I'm doing the right thing. I'm just having a blast watching you all die.
- From Bad to Worse: Trust me, it can always be worse. I know, I'm likely to be the cause, as my home game will attest.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: I'm not fully sure of my origins, but definitely I was once just an ordinary human living an ordinary life. I went on to become a god and attempt to destroy the world and everyone living in it. Heck, in your first few fights with me, did you expect someone like me to be anything more than a running gag? I'm just full of surprises!
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: It's become known in the Internet era that I'm far more popular in North America than in Japan. This is thanks to the work of Ted Woolsey again, who rewrote my dialogue in the original Super NES release of my game to emphasize my psychopathic hatred of life and thirst for destruction, while in the original Japanese I was more of a giggling fool who destroyed for fun. This alternate depiction of me proved so popular though that it would influence the remakes of the game and my later appearances in spin-offs, and now I'm sort of a Composite Character of my original and translated selves.
- Godhood Seeker: God of Magic, to be precise! I absorbed the power of the Warring Triad, themselves gods, to become even stronger than they ever were!
- Hope Crusher: Your pathetic, empty "hope" is so much more fun to destroy when it seems so close to your reach.
- HP to One: When those self-help book cutouts finally rise to face me and my godly visage, I open the battle with Heartless Angel, which is also used by that darn momma's boy.
- Knight of Cerebus: Once I start showing off my love of destruction, the game really starts getting a lot darker when I show up. I murder somebody in almost every scene I appear in. And that's before I cause the World of Ruin.
- Large Ham: Hey, destruction is so much fun, can I help it if I let myself enjoy it!
- Laughably Evil: Part of why the fans like me. Everyone sees me as horrible monster, but they can't deny I've got some of the funniest moments in Final Fantasy VI and in Dissidia.
- Light Is Not Good: Never forget, light can burn, and as my Light of Judgment proves, it does it real good, too.
- Load-Bearing Boss: In a metaphysical sense. The Warring Triad were the gods of magic and the source of all magic for it, so when I drained their powers, that passed on to me. When I died, all the magic in the world, along with Espers and Magicite, vanished forever.
- Madness Tropes: You could probably stick a good half the index here if you really wanted to stretch my characterization! To list some of the most prominent and important ones:
- Ax-Crazy: ...an ax! I never thought of that! I've spent all this time massacring thousands of people using my magic, but an ax, that's brilliant! Someone get me an ax, a big one!
- Death Seeker: In Dissidia, I become so lost in despair over the pointlessness of life that I resorted to destroying myself to see if that could finally make me feel better.
- Laughing Mad: OH WOW, this is almost my defining trope even more than anything else, I'm the Trope Namer even! Well, my final boss theme is rather, but you get the point. I love causing carnage and chaos wherever and however I can, and I make sure anyone watching knows it! Not that there should be anyone watching, they should all be dead!
- Mad God: I'm the God of Magic, and I'm not so much off my rocker as I am doing cartwheels around the room.
- Monster Clown: If I need the white face make-up, Evil Laugh, and colorful harlequin clothing to frighten you, I'm obviously not doing a good enough job on my own, but I figure it can only help, right?
- Obfuscating Insanity: I may be nuts, but I'm not stupid. When I put what's left of my mind to it I'm just as manipulative and cunning as Final Fantasy's greatests.
- Omnicidal Maniac: The very second I got ultimate power, the first thing I did is try to blow up the world. I didn't get all the way there, but I was pretty happy with what I had managed for a first try. Then the heroes annoyed me at the top of my tower, so I decided to finish the job.
- Psychopathic Manchild: In my Japanese appearances I use the "boku-chin" pronounce that little boys usually use, and some of my behavior could be seen as a "tantrum". That said, I still showed signs of this in the U.S. version when I threw a tantrum over the Kirk Summation the heroes gave me when they finally confronted me at the end of the game.
- Psycho Prototype: The first Magitek Knight, but the process was still experimental and something in my mind just wasn't the same after that procedure, twisting me into what I am now.
- Sanity Slippage: At the start of the game when you first meet me, I'm not really "insane", just a little off-kilter and quick to resort to violence to get my way. As the game goes on you'll notice me laughing more often, getting more extreme in my methods, and by the end of the game I'm way past the limits of rationality.
- Slasher Smile: What part of "having fun killing things and letting it show" do you not get yet?
- The Sociopath: I can check off a good number of the requirements. I care nothing for anyone, cannot understand morality and goodness and why people follow them, can manipulate others to make them do what I want, have no control over my own impulses and am always looking for more creative ways to sate my appetite for destruction, and have a quite large ego and even compliment my own looks in the Dissidia games. Some people just want to the watch the world burn. Me? I was the one who lit the match.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Magitek infusion granted me immense magical powers, but shattered my sanity. It's not fully clear if the power I gained during the game hastened my descent into total madness, or if I just happened to get crazier on my own as I sought more power, but it's definitely possible either way.
- You're Insane!: General Leo called me out on this as I prepared to kill him...yeah, I thought it was a little direct too, especially after showcasing all those other tropes up there.
- Magical Clown: That Joker guy can brag all he wants, but can he say that he became a full-blown god? Oh sure, there was that Emperor Joker... thing, but he cheated. My powers are all mine.
- Manipulative Bastard: In Dissidia, I spotted that weirdo crossdresser Kuja maybe planning to switch sides, so I put the kibosh on that.
- Mysterious Past: My past prior to the game's beginning is a blank slate. Someone tells you I was the first Magitek Knight, but otherwise, there are no details of my history revealed. Some Fanon inspired by Japanese non-licensed doujinshi paint me as a Thamasan orphan who became one Gestahl's finest generals, and the one who recruited Celes into our ranks. Then my Magitek infusion corroded my mind and I was bumped down to court mage in favor of General Leo. None of that is official canon, but if you wanna go with that, be my guest.
- Nietzsche Wannabe: I'll say it again, nothing you've accomplished in life matters, and you and everything you cherish will one day be destroyed, so why bother living at all? This is why I decided to destroy the world, it'll all die without my influence, but I can speed things along and help you get it over with.
- One-Winged Angel: And mine even predates the Trope Namer. Take that, momma's boy!
- Poison Is Evil: Well, duh. Just ask the people of Doma... what's left of them, anyway!
- Practically Joker: Grr! I hate to admit it, but yeah, we got quite a bit in common. Laughably Evil, Lean and Mean, Monster Clown, prone to Evil Laugh... yeah, yeah, we got a lot of overlap. But listen! We're not exactly twins separated at birth either! The fact you actually know my name, my backstory, and I have magical powers while he doesn't means we're quite different too.
- Rule of Symbolism: It seems those snoopy scholars analyzed the Statue of the Gods, my final glorious form, and the song "Dancing Mad" during my final battle with the heroes. They all agree that I have to take them to hell, to purgatory, and to heaven before facing me, the one and only God of Magic. And unlike that "god" fashioned out of the mind of that puny little being named Dante Alighieri, I don't need to tell the heroes the meaning of life, because it's entirely useless!
- Shut Up, Kirk!: I question the heroes if they got anything to fight for, and they actually decided to answer and boy were their answers sappy, so I told them they sound like bad lines from a self-help book.
- The Starscream: Remember how I was cackling in the Magitek Factory about reviving the Warring Triad? That was a hint that I was planning to stab that pompous fool Gestahl in the back long before we got to the Floating Continent. You can also see how angry I got when he bossed me around in the Cave of the Sealed Gate. Not to mention (unlike the freak himself) I was a successful Starscream — the results speak for themselves.
- Winged Humanoid: Oh, another trait I share with that momma's boy... turning into this. Good thing I trumped him first in Dissidia in terms of having my final form being my Super Mode! Take that, one-winged wuss!
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: I may be a Nietzsche Wannabe, but think about that — the very concepts of hope, love, friendship? They mean nothing to me. I'm just too insane to understand them anymore. So if I can't live for those precious things that make everyone else happy, what else can I live for but destruction? All I have to bring meaning to my life is destroying things, and eventually even that won't be enough. This is why I was driven to my Death Seeker status in Dissidia, there was nothing left to try to make me happy except destroying myself.
Hey, guess what? While you were reading all that, I was still counting down from sixty. ONE! *fwoosh*
