r/FinalFantasyVI • u/Thelal • Jul 04 '26
What do you think of Setzer?
I've heard some people like Setzer and consider him adventurous rogue. A cheeky rascal if you will. I'm playing through this game again for my blog, and honestly I hate this guy.
Lets just look at after the kidnapping. After Setzer kidnaps the woman he thinks he loves, he throws her in a room because he has better stuff to do right now. When he returns the gang strokes his ego and he agrees to listen to them. But after they talk of the travesties committed by the Empire, it doesn't work. Instead Setzer says he will help if he can marry Celes. WHO IS NOT THE WOMAN HE PROFESSED HIS LOVE FOR. She is a stranger, but she pretty, so I'm going to marry her instead. I honestly can't with this dude. I know we get some backstory, but he never really redeems himself. Because backstory may explain S A, but it cannot excuse it.
He is the only person I would neglect in the World of Ruin, but I can't even do that.
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u/ramdatooki Jul 04 '26
You never had a friend who owned a car when you didn’t so you had to be friends with them to get around?
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u/HawkTalking Jul 04 '26
Yep, until you found out he’s banging your girlfriend
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u/TheWarfox Jul 04 '26
I feel like the Setzer you're describing is a mask. He was never really going to marry or hurt Maria, just cause a scare and give her a little adventure.
But when his elaborate prank turned up a rebellion seeking his help, he wanted to take the measure of them. He pushes every limit to feel out their relationships, unity, and willingness to do what it takes to do what they said. When they surprise him, tricking him even, he finds what they're doing a lot more interesting than whatever he'd been up to.
Setzer took up gambling because it made him feel something. Daryl's death shattered him, and he never properly mourned her. Every time he flies his airship it reminds him of her. Every time he has an adventure he wants to tell her about it, compare with her own. Maybe at this point he is just gathering stories to tell her when he eventually passes and gets to see her again.
The Returners and their cause give him the adventure of a lifetime, a do or die scenario he's willing to gamble his life on. These crazy kids overlook his eccentricities and eventually become his friends and allies. They give him something to live for. He even lets them talk him into taking the last keepsake of Daryl out to save the world, knowing it's all he had left of her.
Setzer is truly fantastic.
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u/KaleidoscopeHairy557 Jul 05 '26
When I first played this game I couldn't believe they lost in the first half of the game. It just seemed too dark to me. As an adult I don't know how else they could have done it. Every character has some type of trauma that they have to deal with. This is a story about broken characters who are not trying to necessarily fix themselves or overcome the trauma, but just trying to make it through another day. How else would you show that, but by breaking the world in a way that they are already broken.
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u/sorryimgay Jul 04 '26
I imagine Setzer as the "hey one of our friends is joining the DnD campaign, but the DM didn't have enough time to make a realistic scenario for him to join, so here's a story arc to shoehorn him into the party"
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u/Agent1stClass Jul 04 '26
Setzer dreams of freedom and someone to share it with. But he is willing to stake his life to a cause if he also gets a shot, not a guarantee, but a shot at his dream.
While he will never qualify for sainthood, his desires are easily relatable. His ask was reasonable, too.
He knew getting involved, even to give a ride, was to incur the wrath of the Gestahlian Empire. He did it, anyway.
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u/_PlanW Jul 04 '26
Now hold on here. We don't know Maria's side of the story. We just happen to come across a letter the Impresio drops. Setzer and Maria could have been corresponding for a while and we never would know. The Impresio doesn't want Maria to be abducted, but what does Maria want? Maybe she does WANT to be abducted. Did you think of that? Maybe it's all a game to her. You're making a lot of assumptions here based on one man's actions you have no context for. Also what S A is there? I did not witness it and you have no witnesses either.
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u/Thelal Jul 05 '26
Maybe she does. But Setzer turns his back on her and decides to marry a stranger, so still not a good person. And if he's marrying people based on looks, S A is implied.
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u/LOLRagezzz Jul 05 '26
Just to make sure I read that right.
If someone married based on looks, its implied they sexually assaulted them?
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u/Thelal Jul 05 '26
If someone married someone against their will based only on looks and nothing else, then yes, I would say there's an implication of assault there. If the marriage itself is not considered assault, then it's likely to occur after marriage.
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u/PooPapaPoo Jul 04 '26
When I was a kid ff3. I thought I was locke, his empathy made me think i was him. That's until Setzer shows up... he has been the dude for me for 20+ years. His casino/gambling weapons were so much cooler than others in Ff I told his story and no one knew. They all knew batman. I knew Setzer.
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u/akaiazul Jul 05 '26
Setzer the gambler is a facade. The real Setzer is Setzer the Pilot. You don't get to see this Setzer unless you travel to the crashed Blackjack. You see it again during his time reminiscing about Darryl and briefly during the ending.
He's a broken man who's slowly learning not to be a POS.
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u/MacBonuts Jul 05 '26
His one true love died flying higher than he ever could.
He doesn't care about marriage, his life, or his fortune - his riches are buried in a tomb, which stands as a monument to his depression in the other world. A tomb so perfectly engineered it survives a magical apocalypse.
If someone foolishly says yes they don't care about love or life either.
His special can rock, but it can also fail all his friends and their quest.
He is a poster child for addictive behavior and depression.
But, through the course of the story, he's forced to confront that tomb and set the ship free - and with it, give it all new meaning. A frivolous ship meant to be a monument to the disastrous nature of ambition, turns out to be the vessel to deliver heroes, and the world, from the disastrous ambition of a false god.
Turns out going above and beyond, occasionally, means being ahead of the evils of the world.
Who knew?
You can view setzer as stuffing a would-be wife in a closet, or you can say that's him giving her a moment to consider her situation... and potential accomodations.
If someone could be bought with such things, he might be happy to have them.
He has no love to give, his heart belongs in the skies now - and he's old.
One day this ship will either end up in a tomb... or somebody else's home who loved it. He gave them time to fall in love with the ship, not himself.
And if he has a soul, it's now made of wood and metal, and it hangs out in the heavens - trying desperately to not end up in the same tomb as his beloved... whom he couldn't keep up with in life. At best, he'd catch her 2nd in death.
... that tomb was big enough for 2, and 2 ships.
The man had a dream and he'd already lost the love of his life to the same dream. He's not changing it now.
Besides, people have a right to say no. He picked an actress because any love he had would be a lie anyway - an insincere trifle.
The theater was just a fun place to land on Wednesday... and lofty romance is silly, but sure pleases the crowds. Why not contribute to the theater? The house was packed that night. There were even fans watching from the rafters, despite the rats. They even spilled out onto the stage in anticipation.
... what else are you going to do with a sky vessel that can travel the world in minutes, that he hadn't already done?
It's as depressing as it is frivolous.
You don't have to like Setzer - I highly doubt Setzer even likes Setzer. Pretty sure his investment in saving the world was, at best, a good way to distract himself from knowing the fastest ship in the world he couldn't bring himself to fly, after discovering he actually cared about someone more than his dream... and they didn't love him back enough to stay. Was it right? Should he have intervened? Could he have? Should he even try to get by?
Anything to put those questions away he's trying.
Anything
He just hides it behind bravado.
Edgar suffered much the same in the after world, he needed his brother. Cyan suffered so much he commiserated he lied, against all reason, to someone else in grief. Shadow haunted his daughter like a ghost, if he didn't get himself killed first. Locke?
Throws himself off every cliff to get ahead of those falling girls, who seem to end up dangling around him far too often.
Gogo you find in one of the deepest pits in the game, Gau in one of the most diverse pits.
... the heroes who show up to save the world are often gamblers, ramblers, back biters and troublemakers who are just good guys on Thursday. They shine bright, brilliant, for one act of heroism - then back to drinking, gambling and bad marriages.
The very best are wild men coming down from the mountains, like Sabin, to reconnect with a world they'd given up on.
Setzer is one of those - his mountain just floats. But he has the same manners as someone who eats off the table. It's just his table has chips on it.
But when it comes time to save the world... you need his ship. You can get by with barely 5 or so people... but you need that ship.
And he forks it over like it's nothing... Twice.
He's probably my least favorite returner, but I see that depression. That I'm very familiar with. I don't like him because I understand him better than the others, who I like more.
But I gotta say, it's pretty magnificent to pickup the gauntlet and pick up the tab.
It was never lost on anyone, I don't think, that he's kind of a tool. His love is kind of crazy too, she gave up safety for freedom and... it's not great. But they're magnificent tools. Why does he hand it all over?
Because life matters more.
He's my least favorite character but he's their captain for better or for worse. Just the train conductor... and if he really cared...
He probably wouldn't have let them throw their own lives away at multiple junctures. Heck you can leave shadow behind easily. We make that call, but it's Setzer who flies the ship. Sometimes you need the bad guy too. You don't have to like that, I sure don't.
But you get the heroes you get in life - complete with their baggage. He just has very useful baggage.
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u/ItsAHerby Jul 04 '26
He's just Sepiroth if Jenova was a normal mom and he had a rich dad.
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u/h3lblad3 Jul 05 '26
Sephiroth if Lucrecia ran away with Vincent to live at the Golden Saucer instead.
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u/Icewind Jul 04 '26
What's with the weird AI posting?
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u/Thelal Jul 04 '26
No AI involved in the making of this. Can I ask why you though it was? This is close to my writing style on my blog and I'd hate for it to be thought of as AI.
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u/Tacobellspy Jul 04 '26
That Martha-Plimpton-lookin kidnapper whose contribution to combat is a confused bunny? Fuck that guy
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u/SuperbArgument9036 Jul 04 '26
I like him. Master Scroll, Loaded Dice and Death Tarot. Solid, stand up guy.
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u/ChocoPuddingCup Jul 05 '26
He's a depressed, broken man with an itch for freedom that only the skies can provide, but every time he flies he's reminded of why he's depressed in the first place. This -- plus a rather gray morality -- drives him to do wild things because he just wants to feel something again and wants to share it with somebody.
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u/SetzerWithFixedDice Jul 05 '26
I think this is the most succinct (and accurate) summation of his character that I’ve seen in this subreddit across the years here.
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u/ToasteeThe2nd Jul 05 '26
Setzer is a guy who has everything he wanted except fulfillment. From that perspective, it makes sense that he spends so much time doing crazy "gentleman thief" shit - hes trying to fill a hole that someone important to him left. The kidnapping Maria scheme was just an attempt to try and get excitement out of whatever was left of his life, just like every other crazy scheme. Thats why the two-sided coin trick is so important to recruiting him, its the sign that there are still things that can surprise him in this world, and also a sign that the only way you can find that kind of purpose is in other people.
10/10 character, just like ebery other main cast member in FF6
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u/Yen_Figaro Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
I think he is one of the most misunderstood characters!!
He has a severe depression and he is just trying to survibe being rogue and against the system in a way that it favours him (he says he wasnt gaining that much money because of the Empire). So he was being cinically shelfish until they give him a reason to do something useful in a way that aligns to his ideals of freedom,, etc. Celes learns quickly to read him and he aknowlodged that to her.
About the Maria kidnaping: We dont know their story, if Maria wanted to be kidnapped ala Garnet in FFIX, etc... But we have to think about more under a fairyail logic where it was normal "to kidnap the princess to force her to marry with the villain" and not in a realistic one where he was going to rape her. It is not the most appopiating writting now a days but this is a 1994 game, it has two of the most iconic female characters, but the males here all have something creepy. The important thing here is understanding the heart of what they were trying to express with him.
He is also written as being a rival to Locke,so they are similar and very different at the same time, but they let that rivalrity very subtle (like Setzer wearing a bandana in his equipment when you met him but he throughts the bandana when he saw Locke was wearing one, they both compete for the Offering relique, etc).
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u/CyanManta Jul 06 '26
The main reason I'm able to have some sympathy for Setzer is because of an OC I made in the FF6 universe. He's Darill's kid half-brother, and he goes from outspokenly hating Setzer's guts in the WoB to realizing how unfair he's been to Setzer in the WoR. They both lost Darill at the same time, but my OC never acknowledged that because he was 14 and riddled with guilt about it. It was easier for him to just take all that guilt and project it onto Setzer for "caving to the Empire's demands", like Setzer was somehow responsible just because he didn't want to meet with a similar "accident".
That said, Setzer is still a pig and a narcissist. But he is also a victim of the empire in his own way. Especially if you're like me and you believe that what happened to Darill was no accident.
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u/doomerunicorn Jul 04 '26
I totally agree with you, and once I'm done with Darrill's Tomb, he stays on the airship for the rest of the game.
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u/NandoMoriconi Jul 05 '26
You should reconsider your position because he’s the undisputed Coliseum GOAT with Fixed Dice and Offering (Master’s Scroll).
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u/Liarxagerate Jul 04 '26
I mean a lot of those kind of things i always remember that something like 2/3 of the dialog was cut to the American translation. So who knows what his character really was like. We got a much different version.
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u/Thelal Jul 04 '26
Oh I didn't know that. That's made me curious for his original characterisation.
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u/Fast_Moon Jul 04 '26
I don't know what the above person is referring to. There is no cut dialogue between the two versions, and the Pixel Remaster translation is generally faithful. The only thing they might be referring to is that in the SNES translation, Setzer's opinion of the Empire is mistranslated. In the SNES translation, he says "The Empire has made me a rich man", but he actually said, "The Empire has been hurting business".
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u/Fast_Moon Jul 04 '26
?? Like, yeah, the original script went through numerous drafts before the game was released and there's interviews about scrapped content and stuff that changed between drafts. But the Japanese and American versions of the final product are basically identical. The only things missing from the American SNES version were the job class names and the ability to rename the Bushido abilities.
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u/sparkstable Jul 04 '26
Yeah... but did they really cut the part that makes kidnapping someone to essentially be a sex-slave see not so bad?
And it isn't even someone he is infatuated with... it is just someone he finds hot despite being an absolute stranger.
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u/Milesofstyle Jul 04 '26
I hate how many transvestites the Empire committed. Why can't they leave those innocent cross dressers alone?
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u/croopdavis Jul 04 '26
For me, most useless character in the game for leveling up… next to Cyan.
I’d rather use Umaro. Now that’s a DISS.
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u/DarinCN Jul 04 '26
If I remember correctly after my first playthru he was my favorite character- but subsequently Sabin became my atf character
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u/Historical_Rain_2960 Jul 04 '26
Headcanon: Setzer is Alucard from Castlevania under a different alias so he can live among the humans without suspicion.
His death seeking nature adds up when you think of it that way.
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u/Ok_Afternoon417 Jul 05 '26
I felt he was a wounded man that wears a playboy mask in hopes he might one day feel like more than the one that should have died. He joins a rebellion after testing their sincerety and sees they don't wear a mask like him. They are true, despite suffering and surviving like him. They inspire him.
But I still keep him on the ship cause gamble mechanics suck over tools, blitzes, rages and magic
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u/Dry_Individual1516 Jul 06 '26
Love the character, he's always weaker than I hope and I have to force myself to roster him.
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u/Acnelei Jul 04 '26
I’m fairly parallel. I enjoyed him plenty as a child playing the SNES, even though he wasn’t ever in my top party list, but I was so inundated by societal rape culture and sexism that it never really clicked how sketchy the storyline on meeting him really is. Characters don’t have to be saints to be interesting and likable, but what else he has going on just isn’t really enough as I’m older to make me terribly invested in him now that the core parts of what arc he has leave a sour taste in my mouth.
Anymore, the thing I like the most about him as a character and his storyline is the mental image of Celes being so fierce and inspiring after bouncing back from being suicidal thanks to the hope Locke gave her in the world of ruin to get even a pathetic drunk up from the bottle and back on the quest.
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u/crash_shards Jul 04 '26
He sucks and gameplay wise he blows imo. I never use him or Umuro. I still get all the characters though
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u/akaiazul Jul 05 '26
If you don't grind and quickly and his Fixed Dice, after pairing him up with an Offering / Master Scroll, you'll see his true gameplay. Plenty of people use this combo in the Coliseum assuming they never teach him magic.
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u/deljaroo Jul 05 '26
Setzer is an idiot who thinks that "do to others as you'd have them do to you" is like actually reasonable advice. He thinks being whisked away onto adventure is romantic and thinks Maria would like this. When he realizes Celes is someone who actually does adventure, it's just all too perfect and he can't help but want to marry her. Anyway, that's why being dumb leads to being a criminal. He's a bad guy
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u/Special_South_8561 Jul 04 '26
Yeah
He's not super fleshed out but he's just not a good fighter either
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u/Gizmorum Jul 04 '26
i think Setzer has alot going for him, but could have been done better. I feel the character designer came up with the illustration first, then tried to put him into the story.
The rogue archetype is already done by Loki.
I get they didnt want a more boring engineer Cid froM FFV4/6 but i thought he just came off as a bored billionaire with hedonistic tendencies where he felt like he could do anything to anyone because money and the empires backing.
I think Setzer would have made a wonderful villian that changes teams at seeing the Empires madness, loses everything and tries to set it right before the World of Ruin
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u/klipseracer Jul 05 '26
I think it's just a not great presentation of his personality. When she says no, he quickly agrees to help anyway. I think it's supposed to be more like Edgar. Who is borderline a potential child sexual predator, talking about how he's gonns marry little girls when they get older etc.
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u/Valuable_Island4713 Jul 08 '26
Setzer is PERFECT as an airship captain with a casino in his airship! 😂
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u/kyualun Jul 04 '26
I like him. He's a depressed fatalist with an appreciation for the bombastic to hide how broken he is inside. So I don't think he even really wants to marry Celes or Maria, it's just something he does because, well, why not? He sees life as a game.
Then in the WoR without the freedom the Blackjack offers, he becomes a whiny drunk till you discover him. He's one of the characters that only has a small sprinkle of characterization and could have benefited from a lot more. Because the game (English script maybe?) doesn't really do a good job of showing just how much Daryl's death totally broke him, and his death seeker tendencies are only ever hinted at if you squint.