Amarant Coral

Amarant Coral (known as Salamander Coral in the Japanese version), nicknamed The Flaming Amarant or Red, and also known as Scarlet Hair, is a playable character from Final Fantasy IX. He is rather mysterious and enigmatic, and rarely opens up about himself.

He is introduced to the player as Red-headed Man before his name can be chosen.

Appearance and Personality
Amarant appears in-game as a tall man with red dreadlocks, a red chinstrap beard and bluish skin. His outfit consists of a green vest and trousers, a red belt round his waist, red bands on his upper arms and green bands on his wrists, and brownish-red boots. In Trance, Amarant's clothes disappear and his skin turns dark with purple highlights. He looks more like an ape than usual. His dreadlocks also turn black.

A rather arrogant man who fights with the honor of a warrior, Amarant also seems a little naive, confused at Zidane's actions throughout the game, and follows him to understand more.

Story
Very little is known about Amarant's past, though he was a guard in Treno for quite some time. One day, Zidane stole something from his post. Amarant tried to stop him, but Zidane successfully framed him as the culprit and Amarant became a wanted man. Amarant was intrigued by Zidane, and was confused by the thief’s attitude.

Amarant is first seen as Queen Brahne's guest. Brahne hires him, as well as a woman named Lani, to steal Princess Garnet's pendant and kill Vivi. Amarant asks if he can kill Zidane as well, and Brahne says he can after he deals with her requests. He is next seen in Madain Sari, where Lani is holding Eiko hostage in return for Garnet's pendant. Amarant stops her, as he does not approve of hostage taking, calls Lani a 'scumbag' and tells her to get lost.

He then challenges Zidane to a fight and loses. He feels disgraced, and is confused by Zidane's mercy. The next day Amarant returns to the village, curious about what makes Zidane so powerful he starts following him around. Zidane eventually accepts his help in accompanying the party. They have plenty of disputes as they travel to the Iifa Tree and watch the battle between Kuja and Queen Brahne. Amarant accompanies Zidane down the roots of the tree to the shore, and returns to Alexandria with him.

In Alexandria, Amarant meets up with Freya, and challenges her to a fight. The guards break them up, and Zidane takes the blame for the fight. He accompanies Zidane, Freya, and Vivi to the castle where they meet up with Eiko and request a meeting with Garnet, now a queen. Amarant returns to Treno, reflecting on the events that had happened in the city before. It is outside the auction house where Amarant formerly served as a guard that he tells Freya, whom he seems to have developed a respect for, all about his past and his meeting with Zidane, much to her amusement.

However, Alexandria comes under attack by Kuja who has summoned Bahamut to attack the Kingdom. Zidane and Eiko have to round up Freya, Vivi, and Amarant and return to Alexandria on the Hilda Garde II with Regent Cid and Erin. On the way, Eiko receives a mysterious distress call and jumps from the airship, meeting with Garnet and explains about Holy Judgment.

Amarant is among those who watch as the pair summons Alexander, killing Bahamut. Amarant accompanies Zidane and his friends to the tower where Garnet and Eiko are found. He leaves with Freya, Vivi, and Cid just in time to see the Invincible destroy Alexandria and witnesses Zidane save Garnet and Eiko.

The party travels to Lindblum to recuperate, and Amarant accompanies Zidane wherever he goes for the rest of the journey. When they get to Ipsen's Castle in order to find a way to open the gate to Terra, Kuja's homeworld, Amarant decides to attempt to find the clue by himself and prove that working alone is better than teamwork. He beats Zidane to the clue, which turns out to be mirrors, dictating the location of four shrines.

However, he falls into a trap on the way out, forcing Zidane to re-enter the castle to save him. Amarant decides to accept Zidane as an ally. He goes to the Fire Shrine with Freya to help break the seal on Terra. He accompanies Zidane to Terra and, along with the other party members, helps Zidane break from his daze when Garland almost manages to steal his soul. Kuja goes into Trance and destroys all of Terra, and Amarant then accompanies Zidane to Memoria, where Kuja and Necron are finally defeated.

During the ending sequence, Amarant is seen walking along the Treno Gate, where he stumbles upon Lani, and the two head for Alexandria to see Tantalus play I Want to be Your Canary.

In Battle

 * List of Amarant's Weapons.

Amarant's job class seems to be a combination of Monk and Ninja, since he uses hand-to-hand close combat skills and supportive abilities like Monks, but utilizes the throw ability like Ninjas.

In battle he uses various Knuckles, claws and fist weaponry combined with lethal martial arts.

Cinna, Blank and Marcus are early temporary characters whose templates are later reused for Quina, Amarant and Eiko, respectively; if the temporary character levels, their stat growth is transferred to their counterpart. For the case of Amarant, he will become whatever level Blank left the party at, if it is higher than the party average. Since Amarant's stats grow when leveling himself, it is not beneficial to level Blank early on.

Abilities

 * List of Amarant's Flair Skills.
 * List of Amarant's Abilities.

Amarant's skillset is Flair which can be used for offense or defense. In Trance, Flair becomes Elan and affects all targets. He also has the ability to Throw weapons, Pinwheels, Rising Suns, and Wing Edges.

The amount of damage Throw does is based on the following formula:
 * $$Base = Thrown Weapon's Atk Pwr * 2 - Target's Defence$$
 * $$Bonus = Str ... [(Lv + Str) / 8 + Str$$
 * $$Damage = Base * Bonus$$

Throw will do 1 damage if Amarant is in Mini status, and half damage if hitting a target with Protect. The bonus is 50% greater if the target is an aerial enemy, or if Amarant is equipped with the Power Throw ability.

As a boss
Zidane fights Amarant as a boss under the name Scarlet Hair in Madain Sari. After being defeated, Zidane invites him to the party.

Musical Themes
"Amarant's Theme" is named for himself, and plays during scenes in which Amarant questions Zidane's ways. It is a piece with a moderate tempo and changes from softer to louder constantly throughout the piece.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Amarant appears in the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game and is represented in two Earth-elemental cards. He is depicted in his Final Fantasy IX render and Yoshitaka Amano artwork.

Etymology
An is a genus of herbs recognizable because of its vivid hue. There are several instances in which the game references Amarant's vivid hair color. It is likely that his name would in fact be spelled with the "h" on the end if the letter limitation for names were set at eight letters instead of seven; he may indeed have been named Salamander if ten letters were allowed. Of interesting note is that amaranth is also another name for red dye #2. There are numerous mentions of the amaranth growing at the base of the tree of life in literature (Aesop and Milton come to mind). It's possible that Amarant, who joins the party to venture to the Iifa Tree, might have been chosen as the name for the English translation for this reason.

The mythical was often depicted as having a close affinity with flames and fire, hence the moniker "Flaming Amarant" (or "Flaming Salamander"). He is named Salamander in the Japanese version of the game.

The French translation of Amarant's name, "Tarask", could be a reference to the, a dragon-like creature from French legend.

His German name, Mahagon, could be a variation on the word mahogany, which is a reddish-brown hard wood.

Trivia

 * When Amarant first joins the party, he refuses to do a victory pose. After being rescued in Ipsen's Castle, he will begin doing his victory pose after winning a battle. His pose consists of sitting down on the ground.
 * Amarant and Steiner are the only humans of the eight main characters. Zidane is a Genome, Vivi is a black mage, Freya is a Burmecian, Quina is a Qu, and Garnet and Eiko are summoners.
 * Amarant's Flair attack, No Mercy, originally appeared in Final Fantasy VIII as Seifer's Limit Break It also appeared on the wall in the Sector 8 Slums of Final Fantasy VII.
 * Amarant and Queen Brahne are the only humans shown in Final Fantasy IX that have blue skin.
 * Amarant is the only permanent party member who does not, at some point, take a leadership role on the field.
 * Amarant is referenced in Dissidia Final Fantasy, by the Moogle Benjamin, through a Mognet letter. If the player selects the answer "bounty hunter in blue" to one of his questions the player will receive a letter titled "Mr.Coral" the next day. In Benjamin's letter, he states that he heard a bounty hunter in blue was in Treno, and he decided to go take a look.
 * In the German version Amarant's No Mercy skill is called Mahagomeha, a word play with his German name (Mahagon) and the famous Kamehameha from Dragonball that was popular at that time Final Fantasy IX first came out.