Maenad



Maenad (マイナス) refers collectively to a group of villains from Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. During most of the game their identities are unknown, and they go by the name of Mysterious Girl (謎の少女). They have come to Earth from the True Moon to seize the Crystals, and move swiftly in gathering them. The Maenads resemble the Summoner Rydia, and share her power to summon Eidolons.

Appearance and Personality
The Maenads are said by party members to physical resemble Rydia, and in -Interlude- a Maenad is able to disguise herself as Rydia to the party, but Edge notices she isn't really Rydia when he sees her, so the resemblance is not exact. Unlike Rydia, their hair is teal rather than green. They wear full-length featureless white dresses with a red necklace, and walk barefoot.

The Maenads have a very detached and cold personality, and have a habit of remarking how they find things "incomprehensible". They are candid and rude, referring to other party members as inferior species and often claiming they have no need to answer their questions and do not deserve to have powers such as the Eidolons or the Crystals. Many of them show a rather robotic personality, as they are seen talking about their mission and orders and allow no obstacles to oppose them. The Maenads do not recognize the party as a serious threat for much of the game, incapacitating them only to seize a Crystal and leaving them alive afterwards. They warn the party and instruct them to hand over the Crystal(s) they have with them or otherwise to not obstruct them, only restoring to violence when the party does not listen - in Edge's Tale, the Maenad Gekkou spies on is aware of his presence, but mentions waiting to see if he would confront her before acknowledging him.

While most of them are hostile to the main characters, they can be pragmatic when it comes to achieving their goals - they recognize Cecil's use as a specimen to aid in their gathering of the Crystals, and agree to allow Kain to duel with Cecil on the condition he retrieve the remaining Crystals for them. In the Depths, while some Maenads are fought as random encounters, others speak to the party without hostility, showing they only attack when ordered. During the end sequence the Maenads turn on the Creator to allow the party to escape, telling them to take care of Cuore, the future of their race, and being angry with the Creator for pursuing them, claiming he is their father.

Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-
The Maenads' resemblance to Rydia is explained in Interlude. At some point before the celebration of Damcyan's reconstruction, Rydia came upon the Crystal Chamber in the Sealed Cave, and the Creator's Dark Crystal was able to obtain information on Rydia and her powers, allowing it to create the first Maenad in Rydia's image. This is supposedly how the Creator was able to summon shadows of other bosses from the Final Fantasy series by using the Crystals.

This leaves Rydia unconscious, and the event is briefly foreshadowed in a dream Cecil has. When the party arrives in the Sealed Cave to rescue her, they find the Maenad and believed her to be Rydia despite her strange behavior while gradually regaining Eidolons. The party takes her back to the airship, where they notice a strange light radiate from the Tower of Babil. When they get to the Cannon Control room, the Maenad enters it and the party is attacked the Deus Ex Machina.

After defeating it with Edge's help, the group eventually find "Rydia" with Edge confirming her to be an imposter as she attacks them and summons Bahamut. The real Rydia then enters the fight, and talks sense into Bahamut with the Imposter escaping before her true identity is revealed. Somewhere, supposedly on the True Moon, the impostor informs the Creator that "the Eidolon project is complete".

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Fifteen years later, by the time of After Years, The Maenads first appear on the Red Moon, questioning Golbez and Fusoya about the whereabouts of the Crystals. When the two refuse to answer the Maenad attacks them, summoning Asura against them, but Golbez and Fusoya slay her. Worried about the Eidolon she wielded, the two go return to the Crystal Palace to find the Crystals turned dark, their light vanished. A second Maenad appears to fight them and take the Crystals, this time using Leviathan, but she is also defeated. At this time the true nature of the Maenads is revealed when a third appears behind the fallen body of the second and declares they no longer need the Crystals. The lightless Crystals are left to shatter one-by-one, and the Maenads turn their attention to Earth.

The Maenads arrive on Earth in a meteor, then split up to take the Crystals. The first seen travels to Baron Castle with Bahamut and strikes down Cecil. Recognizing his use though, the Maenad corrupts his mind, and through him takes control of Baron and the Red Wings to use in their mission. Another Maenad goes to the Feymarch to take control of the Eidolons there. Another Maenad, possibly the same one, goes to the Underworld and seizes the four Dark Crystals using the Red Wings.

When a Maenad attacks Mysidia, Kain turns their Crystal over to her and accompanies her back to Baron, where the two strike a deal - Kain will gather the Crystals of Fabul and Damcyan, and will hand all three Crystals to her in exchange for a chance to duel Cecil. The fourth Crystal, in Troia, is seized by another Maenad, who pursues the Crystal to the Magnet Cave in the hands of Palom and Leonora and freezes them using Shiva

In Edge's Tale, Edge and the Eblan Four investigate the Tower of Babil, which has been reactivated. A Maenad is behind this, presumably intending to use the tower to return to the True Moon, and she summons Ifrit to pursue Edge and the Eblan Four into the underworld, where they escape by leaping onto the Falcon as it passes by. Also in Edge's Tale, Gekkou witnesses the arrival of the Maenads as one emerges from the Impact Crater and dispatches a group of monks from Fabul.

In the final tales, the only Maenad initially seen is at Baron Castle with Cecil. When her control over Cecil is broken by Odin, she engages the party but is defeated. However, four more Maenads appear, announcing they have all the Crystals now and have no further need of the planet. The party uses the Lunar Whale to fly to the True Moon in pursuit of them as the True Moon begins to come closer, apparently to impact the planet.

At the final floor of the Subterrane, a Maenad opens the path to the Depths telling the party she will leave it to them to choose how they wish to die. At the end of the Depths a Maenad engages the party with Bahamut, but is defeated when Bahamut regains his senses with the help of Asura and Leviathan and turns on her. Beyond this point the party finds the home of the Maenads where they are produced and where they wait until needed. The party finds a young Maenad who asks them for orders, but is told to wait for them.

After the party finds the Creator, he explains that the Maenads are his latest experiment, produced from the data the Crystals gathered about the evolution of Earth's species, and were sent to Earth to take the Crystals back for him. The Creator goes berserk when the chemical of his life support system overwhelm him, and he pursues the party as they flee from the True Moon. Along the way they retrieve the young Maenad. The other Maenads come to the party's aid, telling them to take care of the child, and eventually destroy the Creator with a Meteor spell, sacrificing their lives in the process.

During the ending the young Maenad is shown living in Mist with Rydia, who has named her Cuore, and despite her origins is growing into a normal, happy child under Rydia's care.

Abilities
The Maenads are powerful sorceresses, and are able to teleport, use telekinesis to move objects, cast high-level Black Magic including Meteor, and can summon Eidolons. Their capacity to summon Eidolons consists of petrifying their material forms and corrupting the Eidolon's mind, but Fusoya says this is not simply petrification, but a casting of the Eidolon's spirit into another dimension. This process can be disrupted by evoking an emotional response from the Eidolon, such as when Rydia calls out to them, or when Odin comes to his senses upon refusing to harm the party members standing against Cecil, as they are citizens of Baron and he is the spirit of the King of Baron. When this "awakening" occurs the Maenads lose the ability to summon that Eidolon.

The Maenads indicate during the game they are aware of each other's actions, implying that they possess a hive mind that allows them to share thoughts. The non-hostile Maenads in the Depths support this idea, as they speak in the plural "we", and one says "our will is as one".

As a Party Member
During the Interlude story in the Complete Collection, a Maenad joins the party while disguised as Rydia. She is a carbon copy of Rydia, she can equip what Rydia could equip and learns spells at the same level like she did in Final Fantasy IV. During the course of the chapter she acquires the ability to summon Ifrit, Ramuh, Shiva, and Titan. She is also able to learn Goblin, Bomb, and Cockatrice. She joins the party at Level 32, and comes equipped with a Blitz Whip, Gold Hairpin, Minerva Bustier, and Ruby Ring.

Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-


A Maenad, still in the guise of Rydia, is fought as the final boss of the Interlude. She summons four Eidolons and then Bahamut against the party in sequence before the true Rydia returns and awakens Bahamut, allowing the Maenad herself to be fought.

The After Years
Maenads are fought throughout the game as bosses under the name "Mysterious Girl". In Palom's Tale, Edge's Tale and Porom's Tale the fights cannot won - in Edge's Tale the player must flee, and in Palom's Tale and Porom's Tale the fights are scripted to end with the Maenad calling an Eidolon to defeat the party. In the Lunarian's Tale and The Crystals, there are three fights with a Maenad and all must be won.

In the Depths of the True Moon, Maenads appear as random encounters.

Battle
The Maenads are fought several times in the game under the name of the Mysterious Girl. When their true identity is revealed, they are fought in pairs as random encounters in the last floors of the True Moon. In Interlude, the Maenad that masquerades as Rydia is the final boss of the tale.

Music
The Maenad's theme is called The Mysterious Girl in The Complete Collection, or Mysterious Girl ~minus~ on the Final Fantasy IV & The After Years Sounds Plus album. It is one of the few new pieces of music not from the original Final Fantasy IV. The theme plays whenever the Maenads are present, and plays in the Depths of the True Moon when the player reaches the home of the Maenads and the Creator.

The theme serves as the basis for The Eidolons Shackled or The Dispossessed Eidolons ~Minudes~, the battle theme used whenever the player fights the Maenads. The theme's tune is remixed into Master of Creation, the theme played on floors prior to the Bottommost Depths of the True Moon, and Planetary Core, the theme played when in battle against the Creator's shell.

Etymology
In Greek mythology, the s were female nymphs who followed the god, and were known to go into frenzies from losing self-control. The name maenad has also come to be associated with women both supernatural and historical that followed him.

Trivia

 * Maenads and "their Creator" are mentioned in a book in Final Fantasy Dimensions.
 * The Maenads are implied to travel to the Red Moon and Earth via meteors. This same method of travel was used in Final Fantasy V.