The long-rumored Final Fantasy 9 Remake still isn’t certain, but thankfully, a new prequel book is here to fill out all of the original’s blank spaces anyway. Top of the list: Where the heck did Vivi’s grandpa get his name from?
Square Enix recently revealed that a Final Fantasy 9 prequel book following adorable black mage Vivi and his adopted, aloof grandad Quan is on the way with a beautiful teaser trailer. The short clip below includes a couple shots of the book’s fairytale art, with one scene in particular showing Quan measuring Vivi’s height on a wall in roman numerals.
Vivi himself is about three feet tall – he’s a short goofy guy – but to make him feel a little better, Quan measures him from his toes to the tip of his very pointy hat. Want to take a wild guess at how tall he is? Six feet, Six inches – or, rather, VI feet, VI inches. Vivi. Sigh.
It’s a hilariously silly origin story for such a tragic character especially because, for the last two decades, fans have long thought the name Vivi had a slightly more sentimental context.
We now have canon explanation why he is called Vivi (from the upcoming FF9 Vivi picture book) from r/FinalFantasyIX
Spoilers for Final Fantasy 9 ahead.
Since Vivi is actually a cloned black mage, destined for eventual death, fans always reckoned that his name had Latin origins. We always knew that Quan had given him the name Vivi, but many a headcanon surmised that it came from the word Vivienne, which more or less translates to “alive.”
Still, maybe the remake project can provide a more definitive answer if it even exists at all.
