Paine

This article is about Paine, a character in in Final Fantasy X-2. For the United States Founding Father Thomas Paine, see Thomas Paine.

Paine is a fictional character from the PlayStation 2 video game Final Fantasy X-2. She is a new addition to the returning cast of Final Fantasy X.

As her name and clothing suggest, Paine is known for her terse, direct personality and non-aversion to applying force to difficult situations. However, her friends consider her more quiet and thoughtful than unfriendly. She is also a sensible third opinion when Rikku and Yuna become distracted from their missions or show a lack of common sense.

Paine's default costume is said to be designed after New York City punk stylings, although many fans find remarkable similarities to it and the leather outfit of Final Fantasy VIII's Squall Leonhart. In addition their personalities are somewhat similar, although Paine usually comes off as less severe than him.

In one of the side quests of the game, you can collect Crimson Spheres found around Spira. These spheres document Paine's experience as a candidate recorder for the Crimson Squad, which was intended to be an elite fighting force, some of whose members would lead Crusader chapters. These spheres show that Paine had been the recorder of a Crimson Squad candidate team of Nooj, Baralai, and Gippal, now leaders of the Youth League, New Yevon, and the Machine Faction, respectively. Once you obtain all 10 Crimson Spheres, you can use them to open up a cave known as the Den of Woe, where most of the Crimson Squad candidates met their doom when the pyreflies within the cave overwhelmed them with feelings of despair and anger, causing them to turn on one another. Only Nooj, Baralai, Gippal and Paine escaped alive, but inside the Den of Woe, Nooj became posessed by a shadow of a young man named Shuyin, who had died 1000 years ago. The shadow had been created by the powerful emotions that Shuyin had felt when he died, and he later caused Nooj to fire on his friends, effectively cooling the friendship.