Cid Raines

Cid Raines is a non-player character in Final Fantasy XIII and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, and one of the long line of characters named Cid in the Final Fantasy series.
In Final Fantasy XIII, Raines is a Brigadier General who commands the colossal airship, the Lindblum, as he works for the Guardian Corps and is the commander of the Wide-area Response Brigade, a military unit otherwise known as the "Cavalry". In Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Raines acts as a representative for the souls of the dead.
==Datalog==
===Final Fantasy XIII===
Cid Raines is the commander of the Wide-area Response Brigade, a military unit otherwise known as the 'Cavalry.' His vaunted position in the army has afforded him an unobstructed view of the blind obedience the government shows to the fal'Cie. In order to free Cocoon from the tyranny of these powerful entities, Raines has begun enlisting the assistance of Fang and the other Pulse l'Cie.
Raines had been planning to overthrow fal'Cie rule, but was made into a l'Cie by Barthandelus before those plans could be put into action. Since then, he has been a part of the fal'Cie's scheme to guide Lightning and the others through their battles with the Sanctum, and along the path to Cocoon's destruction. However, Raines regains the will he once had as a human, and attempts to foil Barthandelus's plans by killing the l'Cie. Despite his eventual defeat, the Cavalry commander transforms into crystal.
During his failed attempt to overthrow fal'Cie rule, Cid Raines was cursed to become a pawn of Barthandelus. Concealing his l'Cie status as he continues to lead the Cavalry, Raines pursues his Focus of supporting and guiding Lightning and her companions along the path to Cocoon’s destruction.
After defying his Focus and falling in battle against the fugitive l'Cie, Raines turns to crystal. He is later revived by Barthandelus to serve as the new Primarch—a puppet with the sole purpose of inciting conflict among the people of Cocoon.
===Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII===
A man who once defied the orders of the gods and hoped to set mankind free. He died an unnatural death while working towards this goal. General Raines was a military man, working for Cocoon's Guardian Corps. He wished to defeat the fal'Cie, powerful servants of the gods, and return to humanity control of its own fate. He lost that fight, and in the cruel irony that gods so love, he was turned into a puppet for the fal'Cie. He faced Lightning as an enemy, when they should have been allies.
He may have met a tragic end, but his wish to see the people free lived on in those who followed after him. For Lightning, Raines was both a bitter enemy and a comrade in the great fight against the gods.
==Profile==
===Appearance===
Raines is a young man with black hair and gray eyes. According to Tetsuya Nomura, male Sanctum officials shave the sides of their heads, but Cid wears his hair in a style that covers this.Final Fantasy XIII Scenario Ultimania, p.50–52 His clothing is close to PSICOM commander Yaag Rosch's with a lighter color scheme. He wears a large cape and blue-to-silver pauldrons with the left more ornate than the right. He sports this outfit in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
Raines's l'Cie mark is on his right hand, hidden by his glove. 
His boss form is his transformation into a Cie'th, and he keeps transforming as the battle progresses, sprouting more wings. His body turns crystalline, his transformation advancing from the brand of Lindzei on the back of his right hand. His lower half remains human. When he loses health, he cannot control the brand's power and his transformation worsens, growing crystalline wings that yet have a bone structure similar to a bird's wings.
===Personality===
Similar to the other leaders of Cocoon's military forces, Raines is cultured and well-spoken, but also possesses a friendly disposition. He shows hospitality to Snow once he arrives on the Lindblum. His servitude is to the people of Cocoon, rather than to its fal'Cie. Even after becoming a servant of the fal'Cie, he retains this trait and defies his Focus to try and protect Cocoon's people. He is skilled in combat, as he easily parries Lightning's attacks and disarms her when the party encounters him in the Fifth Ark.
==Story==
===Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero -Promise-===
After the Pulse l'Cie Fang and Vanille awoke from crystal stasis inside the Pulse Vestige in Bodhum, they attacked the Euride Gorge power plant and separately went into hiding. Cid Raines and the Cavalry see this as a chance to usurp the Cocoon fal'Cie. While feigning allegiance to PSICOM, Cocoon's anti-Pulse army, Cid has the Cavalry help the l'Cie hoping to gain their support for his cause.
The Cavalry captures Fang and brings her onto the Lindblum where she meets Cid. He claims to not be Fang's enemy even if it is his job to help protect Cocoon. He lets Fang witness him lying to PSICOM Lieutenant Jihl Nabaat that their pursue of the l'Cie has been fruitless to gain her trust. He explains the Cavalry doesn't agree with PSICOM's actions, but Fang remains unconvinced, believing the Cavalry captured her to get intel on Pulse, and claims to have no information he could want because she's a broken l'Cie, and that she doesn't have time to help him since she's looking for a friend. Raines says it Fang's choice to help, but says she will be staying with them, and Fang is escorted to the residential area.
When Fang tries to escape, Raines appears and says barriers were put up around the airship to restrict her movement. He offers his sword to Fang to do whatever she wants to him when his men arrive. Fang takes the sword and follows him to a room. Raines shows Fang an audio recording of a conversation between the PSICOM commanders, Rosch and Nabaat, and the head of the Sanctum, Primarch Galenth Dysley, concerning Euride and the fugitive Pulse l'Cie. Rosch and Dysley ponder whether it was too soon to remove the barricade around Euride, and about the rumors spreading that what happened wasn't an accident. Dysley claims the fal'Cie Eden reprimanded him for hiding the truth from the public, and wants to end the investigation so everyone's lives would return to normal. Rosch disagrees since the l'Cie remain on the loose, but as the fal'Cie spokesperson, Dysley can't defy their commands.
An inside man recorded the conversation, which Raines calls "the real Cocoon" where Dysley thinks of the citizens as sheep. As long as Cocoon remains under Sanctum rule the people remain tools of the fal'Cie. Raines believes Fang's Focus is to defeat the Cocoon fal'Cie, and possibly destroy Cocoon by extension. Fang wonders if her and Vanille's Focus is not be to destroy the structure of Cocoon itself, but its core. Raines claims that Fang has the power to destroy fal'Cie, and asks her to lend them that power to destroy the fal'Cie Eden and the Sanctum.
Fang asks if Raines is willing to betray Cocoon. Raines answers he will do anything to achieve his goal, but Fang says she will make her decision about helping him after Vanille is found. Raines tells her about Bodhum's fireworks festival and that PSICOM won't be able to make a move against her if she blends in with the tourists. Fang agrees to stay on the Lindblum until then, though she still hasn't decided on whether or not she will help Raines.
===Final Fantasy XIII===
When Fang and the Cavalry capture Snow in Lake Bresha, they take him aboard the Lindblum where he is introduced to Cid, who greets Snow with a friendly handshake. Cid explains the Sanctum intends to publicly execute the l'Cie to suppress the public's fear, and reveals he plans to overthrow the Sanctum's rule to hand control of Cocoon over to the people.
Snow, believing his Focus is to save Cocoon as Serah asked, agrees to help him track down the rest of the Pulse l'Cie, as after PSICOM moved the Vestige more people got inside it and were branded l'Cie. The l'Cie are on the run somewhere in Cocoon, and the Cavalry's plan is to help them bring down the fal'Cie. Cid drops Snow and Fang off in Palumpolum, where they rescue Lightning and Hope from a PSICOM assault. As the party rendezvouses at Estheim Residence, PSICOM ambushes them, but Cavalry forces disguised as PSICOM troops help the fugitive l'Cie board the Lindblum where they meet Cid again. He helps the party infiltrate the Sanctum Skyfleet's airship base, the Palamecia, after learning that Vanille and Sazh are being held captive on board.
After escaping the Palamecia to the Fifth Ark, the party finds Cid waiting for them. He reveals the truth behind their Focus; the fal'Cie plan to use them to destroy Cocoon in hopes that the Cocoon citizens' deaths will summon the Maker to reconstruct the world. He explains the fal'Cie have been watching over the party, guiding their every step, to turn them into the instruments of Cocoon's demise.
Cid had been planning to overthrow the fal'Cie, but Barthandelus—the true leader of Cocoon's fal'Cie—made him a l'Cie before his plans could be put into action. His Focus is to guide the party along the path to Cocoon's destruction as part of the fal'Cie's grand scheme, but after seeing the way Lightning and her companions fight their Focus, he decides to challenge his fate as they have. Cid's brand quickly advances, and be begins transforming into a crystalline Cie'th. He holds onto his humanity long enough to carry out his final plan: kill Lightning and her companions to "set [them] free" of their Focus and save Cocoon. After the party defeats him, Cid offers words of encouragement and advises them to choose their own fate as he did before turning into a crystal and disappearing.
Barthandelus salvaged Cid's crystal to revive him as Cocoon's new primarch to sever Cid's ties with the Cavalry, who would see him as a traitor. No longer a Cie'th, Cid submits to his fate as a fal'Cie pawn and oversees a grand prix in the city of Eden organized to commemorate his ascension. Lightning and her friends return to Cocoon from Pulse and crash the race course. As Eden descends into chaos, Cid's former right-hand-man Rygdea and the rest of the Cavalry capture him. Cid requests to be killed and Rygdea reluctantly shoots his former superior to free him of the fal'Cie.
===Final Fantasy XIII Gaiden Shōsetsu: Yumemiru Mayu, Akatsuki ni Otsu===
After being forced to aid Barthandelus as a Sanctum l'Cie, Raines had defied his Focus and turned to crystal. He was revived as Barthandelus's puppet, unable to exercise the free will he still possesses. Raines uses his remaining l'Cie powers to copy the cerebral structure of his former crystallized self into cyberspace to remain witness to the world's final moments. Now existing as a metaphysical entity, an illusion, and a living shell maintaining a consciousness based on his memories, Raines no longer desires to save Cocoon.
A young university student called René who has discovered the fal'Cie's true motive in wiping out humanity plans to thwart the fal'Cie's plans. After the Cavalry's coup d'état and retreat, the primarch's office is left loosely guarded. René sneaks in and hacks the primarch's personal terminal. From within the artificial brain, Raines observes her, and understands through her actions that she is trying to do what he had failed to accomplish. René nearly goes into a panic when the passcode she needs to access the terminal suddenly appears on the screen. She backs away and a synthesized voice tells her to use the final code to access all of the city's functions. Thinking a fal'Cie has discovered her, René asks for the voice's identity, and it reveals itself to be the remaining echoes of a man who shared her ambitions but failed.
Raines asks if she knows the fal'Cie's plan, and René responds with humanity's genocide by dropping the city of Eden. Raines tells her that she is half wrong, as Barthandelus's plan is to send all of Cocoon plummeting to Pulse upon the death of the fal'Cie Orphan, hidden in its cradle within the Edenhall Reliquary. René begs him to tell her a way to save Cocoon and Raines tells her that she will need to rely on others to make a miracle possible and leave the world's fate in the hands of the Pulse l'Cie. When the l'Cie infiltrate the Reliquary, the fal'Cie will expend a lot of energy to build out the virtual space of Orphan's Cradle, presenting the chance to take control of Cocoon's gravity system and René can implement the automatic control system she designed to stabilize all areas and the evacuation points near the control facilities won't suffer from severe shaking once Cocoon begins falling. Raines alerts René about the footage being broadcast illegally throughout Cocoon, and she gets in touch with her old classmate, Maqui from NORA.
René and Maqui upload René's gravity control program into the system with Raines's support, but Bodhum has been removed from the network as the town was emptied in the Purge, and so René decides to heads there in person to ensure its gravity control facility will operate and save the Purge survivors still hiding out there. Raines says it's all he can do and the rest is up to René. She assures that he can count on her and asks him to watch over her and the others like the Cavalry does. Raines says he is the one who should thank René and tells her to go save Cocoon. René speeds out of the office and doesn't look back. With his will now passed on to a new torchbearer, Raines smiles from within the artificial world.
===Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII===
The souls trapped within the Sea of Chaos assume Cid's physical form to communicate with Lightning. Raines, whose soul also remains in the Sea of Chaos, describes himself as the advocate for the souls of the dead. He tells Lightning that Vanille has the power to help the souls be reborn, but the Order of Salvation is going to use her to destroy the dead. Cid reveals the truth about the nature of Chaos, and warns Lightning that if she chooses to save the souls of the departed, she will defy Bhunivelze. With a final message of hope for Lightning, Cid fades away.
==Gameplay==
Cid Raines is fought as a boss in the Fifth Ark. His battle style revolves around shifting through stances, similarly to the paradigm system available to the playable party. He has three stances: his offensive stance concentrates on Commando and Saboteur; his defensive stance concentrates on Sentinel and Synergist; and his recovery stance concentrates on Medic. He lacks a stance for executing elemental spells. Cid can use Seraphic Ray, which deals large damage and removes all status enhancements from the party.
==Musical themes==
Cid's appearances in Final Fantasy XIII are mostly accompanied by the "Cavalry Theme". "Setting You Free" plays during his appearance on the Fifth Ark, as well as during his appearance in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.
==Other appearances==
Cid has appeared in the following games throughout the Final Fantasy series:
*Pictlogica Final Fantasy as a playable character.
*Final Fantasy Record Keeper as a playable character.
*Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia as a playable character.
*Theatrhythm Final Fantasy All-Star Carnival.
*Final Fantasy Artniks as a card.
*Mobius Final Fantasy as an ability card.
*Final Fantasy Trading Card Game as a series of cards.
*Triple Triad as a series of cards.
== Non-Final Fantasy guest appearances ==
Cid has made key guest appearances in the following non-Final Fantasy games:
* Monster Strike as a playable character.
==Behind the scenes==
Though his age is never explicitly stated, Raines appears to be one of the few young Cid characters; usually a Cid is an older man. He is the first Cid to play the role of an anti-hero, following Dr. Cid from Final Fantasy XII being the first Cid antagonist.
A model for Cid Raines in crystal stasis exists in the game disc of Final Fantasy XIII-2 as dummied content. It is unknown why Raines's crystal model exists in Final Fantasy XIII-2.
===Voice===
Cid is voiced by Yuichi Nakamura in the Japanese version. He shares his Japanese voice actor with Trey from Type series, Thancred from Final Fantasy XIV, and Ravus Nox Fleuret from the Final Fantasy XV Universe. Coincidentally, Ravus in Final Fantasy XV has a similar boss form as Cid Raines does in Final Fantasy XIII.
He is voiced by Erik Davies in the English version. Coincidentally before a voice-recasting in English, this Japanese and English voice combo had previously voiced the BlazBlue characters Hazama Honoka and Yuuki Terumi.
==Gallery==
==Etymology==
Cid is a recurring name in the Final Fantasy series. 
The characters named Cid usually have a science or engineering background, or something to do with airships.
Raines's airship, the Lindblum, is named after the city of Lindblum in Final Fantasy IX. As Regent Cid Fabool IX was the leader of the nation of Lindblum, Cid Raines is the commander of the Lindblum airship.
==Citations==
de:Cid Raines
fr:Cid Raines
ru:Сид Рэйнс
Category:Characters in Final Fantasy XIII
Category:Characters in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Category:Cid
Category:L'Cie
Category:Antagonists