Clive’s mother is Anabella Rosfield, and she isn’t what you’d expect
Unlike pretty much every main character in RPG history, Clive Rosfield has a mother in Final Fantasy XVI — just don’t start feeling very happy for him just yet.
Clive’s mother is Anabella Rosfield, the wife of Elwin Rosfield, the Archduke of Rosaria. You don’t need to play further than the two-hour demo to realize the two parents have different priorities. Elwin fights a war against an Empire and a mysterious blight in an attempt to save his people. Meanwhile, Anabella appears to have a fixation on her family’s power.
Her bloodline is notable for bearing children who are “dominants” of the Eikon Phoenix, or in plain language, people who command the strength of a powerful beast of fire. Preserving this power is important to Anabella.
She has two sons, Clive and Joshua. Clive is the strongest of the two, but also a source of disappointment. Though kind-hearted and a skilled combatant from a very young age, Clive failed to impress the Phoenix and gain its powers. Instead, the Phoenix chose Joshua as its “dominant.”
This causes Anabella great distress. Joshua, though equally kind-hearted, is a sickly child. From Clive’s mother’s perspective, she has an heir who’s strong but not a dominant, and a second-born who’s weak but is a dominant. She seems to dislike Clive from the get-go, but she cares for Joshua. Might that be only because he carries the power of the Phoenix?
Spoiler Warning
The following will discuss critical story details following the prologue of Final Fantasy XVI.
Everything below will be revealed as you progress in the game. However, if you want a recap of what role Clive’s mother plays throughout the course of the story, continue on.
After the prologue
At the end of the demo, enemy soldiers infiltrate Rosaria and kill Archduke Elwin among many of his people. Are you expecting Anabella to have a change of heart and die in a brave attempt to save Clive at the end of the first act? Don’t.
Anabella is, in fact, instrumental in Rosaria’s downfall. Though not the evil architect that got the wheels of doom in motion, she did indeed possess the callousness necessary to betray her people and even her family. We later find out that she only cares about having a powerful bloodline — and for pettily shutting down rumors. Two children each with half the attributes she considered necessary for a ruler simply would not do.
She betrays everyone because a third party tricks her into having a child that would possess all the traits she needed in her son.
The fate of Clive’s mother
When Clive and Joshua finally confront her as adults, the moment when you’d expect her to atone or at least apologize for the error of her ways, she never does. She even rejects Joshua, the son she once seemed to love.
Anabella is not the main villain of the story, but she’s no tragic anti-hero, either. She brought immense grief to countless people simply because of her unnecessary insecurity and greed. The creation of such a character is a bold move for Square Enix — especially if it comes as revenge against all the fans who joked about how these characters never have mothers. Even Jecht from Final Fantasy X would’ve probably looked at how she treats Clive and gone “Whoa, that’s cold.”
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Published: Jun 26, 2023 02:10 pm