Lightning (Final Fantasy XIII)

Lightning is a playable character and the main protagonist in Final Fantasy XIII. She is the second central female protagonist in the main series (the first being Terra Branford of Final Fantasy VI). She wields a gun-sword that can switch between its forms. She is shown to be a cold person, who distances herself from her companions. During the game it is revealed that Lightning's real name is Éclair Farron.

Appearance and Personality
Lightning has light pink hair and blue eyes like her sister Serah. She wears a light brown turtleneck shirt along with a necklace with a ligthning bolt pendant underneath a white solidier uniform adorned with a green metal plate over her left shoulder with two glowing yellow stripes symbolizing her rank, a long flowing red cape attached to her back on the left side, and a brown belt around her waist. She also wears two blue gloves with gold plates over her knuckles, a long black sleeve over her left arm that begins from her bicep, a brown mini-skirt with a black case that holds her Blaze Edge dangling behind her, a storage pack on her left hamstring attached from her skirt, and two knee-high leather boots. Her l'Cie mark is on her chest, but remains hidden beneath her shirt.

Lightning's personality is determined, concentrated, independent, and cunning. Lightning has a straight forward persona with a lone wolf attitude, while she was working with Sazh, she was determined to complete her mission in finding the Pulse fal'Cie. She was also easy to annoy, for example, when Snow called her "sister" due to his relationship with her sister, Serah, she yells at him and at one time, nearly pummels him to submission. However, Lightning wasn't completely heartless; she cared deeply for her sister's safety. After their parents died, Lightning looked out for Serah like she was her daughter. She also comforted Hope after the loss of his mother; it is possible that she sees Hope as a kindred spirit because of how they both lost their families.

Story
In the web novel, it is revealed that Lightning lost her parents when she was around Hope's age, and ever since then, has acted as a mother to her younger sister, Serah. However, during her entry into the military police as a sergeant under Sergeant Major Amodar, losing sight of her goals as she becomes acquainted with Team Nora. Lightning's dislike of Snow is made very apparent, as she consistently refers to him as a "worthless unemployed man". She even blames her lack of attention to Serah as a reason for her spending time with Snow. As Lightning's 21st birthday is approaching, and she was going to plan a small vacation with Serah in hopes of taking her attention away from Snow. The day before it, while attending the Bowdam fireworks, Lightning learns of a Pulse-related incident which Amoda warned her not to get involved in and focus on getting promoted and her sister's happiness. Eleven days later, after Serah is trapped in the ruins, Lightning resigns from the Defense Force to make her way into the train holding those who are to be Purged from Cocoon.

Final Fantasy XIII
As the train enters Hanged Edge, Lightning fights her way through the cars along with Sazh Katzroy, her accomplice, rallying the Purgees as PSICOM sends its forces after the train and derail it. As the surviving Purgees escape and are found by Team Nora, Lightning presses forward to Pulse's fal'Cie with the intent of saving her sister. However, once finding her sister with Snow at her side, Lighting took Serah's crystallization hard and took her anger out on Snow after learning that he was going to marry her sister. Driven by grief to provoke the fal'Cie Anima, her way of honoring her promise to Serah of saving Cocoon, Lightning is made into a l'Cie.

Coming to at Lake Bilge, Lightning leads the group before she and Snow go their separate ways after finding Serah and Lightning accepting her sister's fate, to Snow's dismay. Ending up at the Vile Peaks area, Lightning goes ahead of the group with Hope following. As they get separated from Sazh and Vanille, in a moment of anger as her l'Cie power manifests, Lightning yells at Hope about how she could protect him when she can't even save herself, collapsing to the ground as it triggers Odin to appear. Lightning and Hope battle then him to prove Lightning's strength to the Eidolon. As Lightning and Hope are about to enter the Gapra Whitewood, Lightning tells Hope that she will lead and he will be her backup. When Hope asks her if he can lead instead, she asks him if he can handle it. After he reassures her, Lightning smiles, gives him the nod to go ahead, then tells him to look forward and she will guard his back.

In Palumpolum, Lightning follows Hope through tunnels leading underground in order to evade PSICOM soldiers. She eventually reveals to Hope the reason she changed her name as she realized she was fal'Cie pawn even before being a l'Cie. After returning topside, they are surrounded by soldiers. She tells him to run while she stayed to fight, although Hope refused. As Snow and Fang attacked the soldiers riding Shiva, Lightning attacks them while protecting Hope. She leaves Hope in Snow's care and runs off with Fang behind her. While with Fang, Lightning learns about the latter's connection with Vanille and how the l'Cie mark serves to tell how much time they have left to complete their Focus.

Late in the game in Oerba Village, it is revealed by Galenth Dysley, posing as Serah, that Lightning's real name is Éclair Farron.

During the confrontation with Orphan, Lightning along with Sazh, Hope, and Snow tried to stop Fang from invoking Ragnarok, and the four of them turned into Cie'th. However, Lightning and the others have their focus changed at the last moment, seeing a vision of smiling people in the future and their happy times as a party much like the initial focus briefing of Ragnarok at the start, indicating their focus is this time the happy future of everyone. Focus changed, they revert from their Cie'th forms and are permitted to live. After Orphan's defeat and the crystallization of Cocoon, Lightning reunites with Serah, and also seems to accept Snow and Serah's relationship.

Abilities and Equipment
Lightning has been shown to possess incredible power with both weapons and magic. She has a military-issue gravity control device called a Gravity Bomb, activated by small imprints on her right thumb and index finger, which allowed her to perform feats normally impossible, including attacking while upside down in the air and landing safely from leaps otherwise impossible to survive. She can also create an "electrical shield".

She is a powerful Commando and Ravager, able to use all four elemental "blow" attacks, all elemental magic to the "Ra" rank, as well as casting Thundaga. She fights in a very fast-paced manner, moving with great speed and using her unique weapon as both a gun and sword. Lighnting's full ATB skill, Army of One (Known as Scene Drive in the Japanese version), is a series of strikes from Lightning's weapon. Her Eidolon is Odin; upon its transformation into Gestalt Mode, Odin becomes the horse Sleipnir which Lightning rides on while wielding two massive swords.

Lightning's initial weapon is a gun-sword called Blaze Edge. Gun-swords are a weapon only used by the most skilled soldiers. In the game, gun-swords has a number of models:
 * Blaze Edge
 * Magnum Blaze
 * Axel Blade
 * Ignite Blade
 * Saber Carbine
 * Slash Carbine
 * Knight Saber
 * Peacemaker
 * Gladius
 * Helter Skelter
 * Ogrenix
 * Apocalypse
 * Hauteclaire
 * Durandal
 * Lionheart
 * Ultima Weapon
 * Omega Weapon

Design
Lightning's visual design is influenced from Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII, as Tetsuya Nomura was asked to design a female version of him to be the protagonist of Final Fantasy XIII. However, Yoshinori Kitase has contradicted this, saying the only similarities between the two are their pasts as soldiers, as Lightning has a more fragile side to her that Cloud does not.

In another connection to Final Fantasy VII, Lightning is voiced by Maaya Sakamoto, who previously voiced Aerith Gainsborough in Advent Children, Crisis Core, and the Kingdom Hearts series, in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII.

Etymology
Éclair is a French word that means "Lightning,". The surname "Farron" comes from the Gaelic language, meaning "thunder." The combination of the two references thunder coming after the lightning.

Early in development, Lightning's real name was going to be "Averia", referring to a species of flowering plants. At this stage, "Éclair" was used during auditions in place of Averia to keep the name secret.

Musical Themes
In Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning's Theme is an acoustic orchestral version of the main battle theme "Blinded by Light".

Trivia

 * Lightning's facial structure has changed during development. In the early materials, she had slightly less feminine traits and her hair was a faded crimson color rather than pale pink.
 * Tetsuya Nomura wanted to include Lightning in Dissidia Final Fantasy as a character, but felt that this could have affected Final Fantasy XIII in the process by locking down the image of the character's skills and so forth. Instead, two mugshots of her appear as Player Icons, along with Icons featuring Noctis Lucis Caelum, representing Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and the card-wielding character of Final Fantasy Agito XIII.
 * A special edition PlayStation 3 featuring an image of Lightning was released on December 17th in Japan.
 * Lightning's initial weapon, Blaze Edge, has an inscription that reads "White Flash. Call upon my name."
 * An odd fact is that Lightning is quite tall compared to other female characters in the series. She is 5'10", while others like Aerith Gainsborough and Yuna are 5'3" or so in height. She is even taller than other main characters, most notably Squall Leonhart and Cloud Strife, who both stand at 5'8".
 * The higher of the two bracelets that Lightning wears is also worn by her sister, Serah. Both wear it on their right arm.
 * Lightning's crystal has taken a shape of a rose, and the rose petals can be seen when Lightning summons Odin and also during Odin changes into horse in the Gestalt Mode.
 * In the Japanese language version, different characters call her differently -
 * Her superior officer, Sergeant Major Amodar, calls her Sergeant Farron.
 * Snow calls her Neesan ("sister", written in Kanji as 義姉, "sister-in-law", though the actual Kana should be Gishi,) as he is already treating her as his sister-in-law, usually to Lightning's irritation ("Who's your sister!" is a recurring response from Lightning). In the English language trailers, wherever Snow originally says "Oneesan" are localized to say "Lightning".
 * Sazh often calls her Neechan, though in his context it is more like calling a women "Miss" informally. This is the same for him to call Snow Niichan (bro.)
 * Hope originally calls her Lightning-san, but sometime during their journey Lightning told Hope he can just call her "Light" (in the same way "Catherine" may be abbreviated to "Cat" without reference to the feline animal). After that Hope calls her Light-san (keeping the honorific).
 * Fang calls Lightning by her given name when they first meet, but, like Hope, Fang is asked to call her "Light."