#*rhiki voice* i'm going to buy 1000% into this weird little yellow grub so i don't think about the fact that urianger has been lying to me

[pangolinheart]

There are a lot of things the game just has you roll with despite being five existential crises in a trench coat.

Someone who's lived a very ordinary life is going to react differently.

For example, in the lost future from where G'raha came, Rhiki's family probably died horribly. In canon they're fine and alive and nothing has happened to them, but in the First, isn't that something Rhiki would get stuck on?

So, this has actually been a major sticking point for me in coming up with a backstory for Rhiki.

As I've mentioned before, with Rhiki's kind of run-of-the mill upbeat, outgoing, and peppy personality, along with her youthful optimism and emotional availability, it's hard to imagine that she has some sort of dark tragedy hidden in her background. Before her role as Warrior of Light really started to develop I thought of her as Just A Guy - becoming and adventurer as part of her "wayward-20-something's self-discovery phase. " She seems pretty well adjusted, with fair-to-good self-esteem and mental health (though both of these deteriorate over the course of the story as she becomes, like you so eloquently put it, five existential crises in a trench coat). So, a stable and loving upbringing with no major trauma makes a lot of sense.

But, at the same time, I think having a loving family or support system that's still intact throughout the story would really undermine a lot of her character development, or change the trajectory of it entirely. There are a lot of things that might not have bothered her as much, or people she might not have gotten as attached to, or choices she might not have made if she could go home and get a warm hug from her mom and/or dad. Part of what drives her story in the beginning is that she feels isolated. Moenbryda's death really drives a wedge between her and the scions - everyone is grieving in their own way, but the way Rhiki wants to grieve is not by herself. (she then conveniently makes a new friend but like two weeks later he says "sorry i'm locking myself in this tower forever because it's what a bunch of people who died 1000s of years ago and have never caused us anything but trouble would have wanted :///" We all WANT things G'raha.) She feels like nobody she works with really knows or is interested in her; they're just using her as a blank screen to project the idealized Warrior of Light that they want and need onto.

That's what drives her to become so close Haurchefant - he treats her like his good buddy, the adventurer rather than the Savior of Eorzea. And being so close to Haurchefant is what makes it so traumatic when he dies, which is what eventually leads to her becoming a Dark Knight and confronting some of her issues (so she can make room for more issues.) It feels like if she had supportive parents or a guardian or n extended family to return to who could, if not directly advise her or sympathize with her issues, at least affirm her identity and personhood and reassure her that there are people who care about her for who she is, all of these things would have been a lot less impactful. As I was playing and thinking about Rhiki I had a hard time imagining her taking a break to go have lunch with her parents, though she's definitely the kind of person who would do that if she could.

(It's also worth noting that I've never really envisioned Rhiki having a super-personal vendetta against Garlemald. She opposes them and their actions of course because Garlemald is such a caricature of an evil empire that an evil Ascian designing it specifically to be as cruel and malicious as possible is the most believable explanation for it's existence. But she doesn't have a burning hatred or desire for vengeance towards Gaius or Zenos or Varis or anything like that. I guess I could retcon one but honestly I think it's very funny that Rhiki can't be bothered to remember who Zenos is 90% of the time.)

So I've created a paradox for myself: she's so normal and positive that she almost can't have had anything super traumatic (like losing her parents) happen to her, but her loving parents/family/support system can't still be alive and intact at the beginning of her story for her to develop into the character she is.

Even without a family to worry about, I'm sure it's still horrifying to realize that in the currently-existing future everyone you know has died horribly. She has plenty of friends and loved ones outside of the Scions that got kidnapped and turned into ghosts on the first with her. But I feel like anyone who had any close ties to anyone other than Alphinaud, Alisaie, Thancred, Y'shtola, and Urianger would probably feel the same way. (Plus, she's immediately presented with a pretty "simple" way to avert that future so, y'know, she's just gotta focus on doing her job. She probably learned to tunnel-vision in on the steps to achieve her goal like 3 major catastrophes ago.)