Selphie Tilmitt

Selphie Tilmitt is a playable character in Final Fantasy VIII. She is an active, outspoken and energetic young girl who participates in many extracurricular activities, such as planning the Garden Festival and running the school's website. She is actually a little clumsy, ironically wielding an oversized nunchaku in battle and piloting the Ragnarok starship.

Appearance and Personality
Selphie most often wears a yellow mini-dress. The dress itself seems to be a miniskirt/overall hybrid featuring clasps that go over the wearer's shoulders and clip at the front of the dress. It also features a frontal zipper that travels the full length of the dress and two large pockets over the buttocks. Around her neck she sometimes wears a silver pendant that resembles a miniaturized replica of a poker machine reel, and upon her left wrist she wears a blue strap. She wears brown cowboy boots that reach about mid-calf to complete her everyday ensemble. As a SeeD, Selphie also sometimes wears her standard SeeD uniform.

Selphie's personality is that of the childish, upbeat, hyperactive sort, always looking to have some fun. However, though she appears cute and ditzy, she is by no means unintelligent: Selphie's clear talent with computers and vehicles betray a fine mind. Throughout the course of the game Selphie runs her own website, is the head of the Garden Festival Committee, disarms and reprograms missiles, and instantly picks up the controls of a foreign starship and pilots it near flawlessly. She often says a lot of cutesy things and has become a fan of combining words to form new ones. Selphie is also well known for her twisted logic and dark sense of humor, sometimes displaying it in a way the other characters are less then comfortable with. It would appear that her cheerfulness is born of desperation, out of a fear of acknowledging unhappiness, a trait that would have inadvertently been caused by her lonely time as an orphan. This is shown when the party visits Trabia Garden, and she tries to be cheerful while talking to her friends' graves despite being emotionally shattered. Her comrades welcome Selphie's presence as she is a loyal friend and enjoyable company, so long as she is not trying to get them to join the Garden Festival Committee, which she does numerous times throughout the course of the game. Throughout the game, she also tries to make it her mission to bring Squall out of his shell, much to her enjoyment and much to his chagrin. Selphie is also known for her obsession with trains and music. Good-natured, Selphie never fails to surprise her friends. She is quite agile and known for her talent to find her way out of a tight spot. Selphie is a nunchaku specialist, a weapon not easy to handle without expertise, especially since her particular models seem to be about four times as large as normal nunchaku. Though bubbly, she is not rebellious and carries out orders in her characteristically friendly manner. She never backs down from a challenge, even if she does not always think it all the way through. But the fact that she occasionally seems blissfully ignorant to the gravity of a situation often lifts her companions' spirits, distracting them from the immediate seriousness of their problems.

Story
Selphie grew up in the same orphanage as the other main characters. She made quick friends with them due to her electrifying personality and even formed a small crush on Irvine Kinneas, another orphan, who similarly returned her affection. However, in time; the orphanage (run by Edea Kramer and her husband Cid) would shut down upon the couple's creation of SeeD and Garden. The orphans were separated as some were adopted, some went with Edea on the White SeeD Ship, and others simply enrolled directly into Garden. Selphie was the only one to move to Trabia and become a student at Trabia Garden, and while this particular Garden does not promote the use of Guardian Forces, Selphie's first junction with a GF occurred during an outdoor training session when she found one inside a monster. Selphie junctioned it for a period of time before eventually losing it and forgetting its name as well as all of her memories of her time at the orphanage, the price one must pay for relying on the power of a Guardian Force. Upon completion of her training at Trabia Garden at the age of 17, Selphie transferred to Balamb Garden in order to take part in the SeeD field exam. It is at this time she becomes heavily involved with the Garden Festival, an event she didn't get to take part in back at Trabia Garden.

Selphie first appears at the beginning of the game when she accidentally runs into an unsuspecting Squall. She misses homeroom class and complains Balamb Garden is so much bigger than Trabia. She asks Squall if he can give her a quick tour around the Garden so she does not get lost again. If Squall agrees, he will take her to the directory located on the first floor and give her general information about each of Garden's facilities and faculty members. Selphie thanks him and heads off to prepare for the field exam they are both taking that day.

During the SeeD field exam in Dollet, Selphie appears to Squall and Zell as a messenger from Squad A. After spontaneously jumping off a cliff and locating the captain of Squad B, Seifer Almasy, Selphie tells them their new orders are to retreat. Seifer is not satisfied with the order and so Selphie is forced to remain with the party for the remainder of the SeeD exam, narrowly escaping to the shore by the allotted time. Selphie is one of only four to pass the exam and become a SeeD, along with Squall, Zell, and another student named Nida. During the inauguration party, Selphie spends her time attempting to recruit people into helping her with the Garden Festival.

In the morning, Selphie is assigned a new mission along with Squall and Zell to assist a resistance faction in Timber known as the Forest Owls, where Rinoa Heartilly is also a member. Their mission is to capture the President of Galbadia, Vinzer Deling, by hijacking his private train and replacing it with a replica. And while their mission ultimately fails due to false intelligence; the three SeeD members are under contract by Headmaster Cid to assist the Forest Owls until Timber's liberation, a vague order they are less than pleased to follow. Nonetheless, their next mission is to intercept the first live televised broadcast in over seventeen years, being delivered by the President himself. This mission fails as well when Seifer shows up in an attempt to seize the President. Quistis Trepe arrives in hot pursuit and calls the Timber Team to the radio station where they meet the Sorceress, who teleports Seifer away and saves the President.

Afterward, the group is forced to leave Timber and head for the nearest Garden, which in their case is Galbadia Garden. Upon arriving, they learn of Seifer's supposed execution which leads Selphie and Rinoa into a conversation about love, as Rinoa dated Seifer over the previous summer. Suddenly the group is called to the front gate by Master Martine where they are given a new mission, this time to assassinate the Sorceress, Edea, before she can take control of Galbadia and become a threat to the world at large. Galbadia Garden's best sharpshooter, Irvine Kinneas, joins the party, and is charged with the official assassination of the Sorceress. The group travels to Deling City where they split into two teams. Selphie is a part of the "gateway team" along with Quistis and Zell whose task is to trap the Sorceress between the bridge as her float passes through. While the "gateway team" accomplishes their part of the mission, the actual assassination fails and the team (excluding Irvine who manages to escape) are captured and incarcerated in the D-District Prison.

They manage to escape, but soon afterward discover Galbadia has ordered attacks on Balamb and Trabia Gardens. As they are discussing their plan, missiles launch overhead in the direction of Trabia Garden. Selphie silently apologizes to Trabia for not being quick enough to save them, but pulls herself back together from her sorrow so that she can continue on with their new mission. Selphie convinces Squall to split the group into two teams; one to infiltrate Galbadia's missile silo while the other travels back to Balamb Garden to warn of the impending attack. She demands to be on the missile infiltration team to take revenge for Trabia Garden, and along with two other team members, heads off to see her vengeance met.

The three infiltrate the Missile Base with a Galbadian vehicle and dress up as Galbadian soldiers to sneak past the guards. Selphie reprograms the remaining missiles to self-destruct. The alarms start flashing and the three are finally discovered. They run outside where they are ambushed by a Galbadian war machine that they quickly disable, but the machine's remains block the only available exit and effectively traps the team inside the base to meet their demise. While the other two teammates mourn their fate, Selphie remains hopeful that Squall chose the team selections for a reason. In quick thinking, she gets the party to take shelter inside the dysfunctional war machine just as the missile base self-destructs. Thought dead, the three remain inside the machine and pilot it when it becomes part of an invasion force against Fisherman's Horizon where Squall's team is forced to fight it until Selphie and the others can get out.

Reunited, the team learns of Garden's mobile capabilities as well as its crashing into Fisherman's Horizon. The FH technicians promise to repair it by morning, but Selphie still becomes temporarily depressed over everything that's happened. Squall and Irvine cheer her up however, and she exclaims that "cheering up" was not something she ever expected from Squall, something he nearly takes offense to, before leaving her in Irvine's hands. Later that night; Selphie and Irvine organize a party in honor of Squall's promotion to Commander where each of the party members (excluding Squall of course) learns to play an instrument and performs for him and Rinoa at the FH sun panel.

After Garden leaves Fisherman's Horizon with Squall as the new Commander, Quistis tells Squall Selphie is exhausted from all that has happened, and she is unavailable to be recruited in the party until they get to Balamb, which they find occupied by Galbadian forces. If Squall takes Selphie in his team to free Balamb, Selphie will visit Zell's room in his house and when Zell complains of Selphie being too much at home at his room, she tells Zell he should be happy a pretty girl like her is sitting on his bed. If the player disagrees with Selphie and sides with Zell their SeeD Rank is deducted.

After liberating Balamb Selphie requests for Balamb Garden to be sent to Trabia. Squall agrees and upon arriving, Selphie reunites with some of her old friends and gives respect to the grave site for those who did not make it. It is here that Selphie and the others (excluding Rinoa) remember their past at the orphanage thanks to Irvine's memory preservation, a result of him never junctioning a Guardian Force. Selphie confesses her experience with using a GF before she came to Balamb Garden, though recalls nothing of it, even its name. Selphie and the others are forced to accept the fact their beloved Matron is now the Sorceress Edea. The team decides to travel to Centra where the old orphanage is located to try and discover the source of the Sorceress's power. When they arrive in Centra, Balamb Garden intercepts the similarly mobile, Galbadia Garden and the Battle of the Gardens ensues. Selphie participates until finally the group is forced to face their former Matron, Edea. After a fierce battle Edea is finally defeated and everyone in the room falls unconscious due to a spell.

Upon waking, Selphie and the others discover Rinoa has fallen into a coma-like state and Edea has been released from the control of an evil Sorceress from the future named Ultimecia. Edea reveals the Sorceress's ultimate goal is Time Compression, a spell compressing all of time into a singular moment, which is something only Ultimecia will be able to survive and will allow her to recreate the world how she sees fit. Everyone becomes deeply concerned over Rinoa's condition (especially Squall) who at the behest of Edea, decides to search for Ellone. When the White SeeD tell them she is in Esthar, Squall docks the Garden against the Horizon's Bridge and ventures alone, the hundreds of miles with Rinoa on his back so that Ellone may bring them together again. However, Selphie and the others beat him to the continent in Garden and berate him for not trusting his friends. The reunited group locates the invisible domain, Esthar City, and eventually discovers Ellone to be in the Estharian space station, Lunar Base, which orbits the planet in the same scope as the moon. Squall takes Rinoa to the space station to be cured while the others stay behind to watch over Edea, who still considers herself a threat unaware that she has lost her Sorceress Power.

Selphie and the rest soon discover a colossal structure known as the Lunatic Pandora looming ever closer to Esthar City. When they attempt boarding, however, they are repelled by an invisible force and are forced to retreat until they can find a way through. When Squall returns with Rinoa, he brings with him the Ragnarok starship. Selphie immediately declares herself its pilot and takes the party away from Esthar so that Rinoa, who is now a Sorceress herself having inherited Edea's powers, is not sealed within the Sorceress Memorial. Selphie pilots the Ragnarok to the old orphanage where each team member expresses their elation over Squall and Rinoa being together. Selphie is glad that Rinoa's "straight-forward" worked to knock down Squall's defenses and states herself she just enjoys being surrounded by her friends.

The team is soon called back by the President of Esthar, Laguna Loire, and Dr. Odine to defeat Ultimecia once and for all. They use the newly acquired Ragnarok to invade the Lunatic Pandora where Selphie aids in the defeat of Sorceress Adel who has recently been possessed by Ultimecia. Afterward, Ultimecia succeeds in casting Time Compression by using Ellone to send her consciousness even further back into time and allowing her to exist in all past, present and future simultaneously. Since the spell is not instantaneous and takes time to cast, Selphie and the others survive the effects by believing strongly in each others' existence. This allows them to travel to the future where Ultimecia awaits and destroy her before Time Compression completes itself. Selphie is one of the first to fall back into time's rift just before she is defeated, believing strongly enough in her friends as well as her own existence that she is transported back to the present time.

The story ends at midnight over a vast ocean where a celebration is held for Ultimecia's defeat. Selphie spends the entire time video taping the moments of all her friends as well as saving Zell from choking on his hot dogs. It is implied here that Selphie and Irvine have begun developing feelings for each other as she wears his cowboy hat and gets jealous when he flirts with other girls. Her video taping ends when she enthusiastically directs Irvine to direct the camera towards the balcony where Squall and Rinoa are about to share their first kiss, but the camera's battery dies before the kiss is caught on tape.

Weapons
Selphie utilizes nunchaku in battle. Her particular models are oversized, which she uses with surprising grace despite usually being so clumsy. Using higher models will increase Selphie's attack power and hit accuracy, but have no effect on how much damage her Limit Break does. Selphie's ultimate weapon, the Strange Vision, is the only weapon (apart from the gunblade) that has natural 255% accuracy.

There are four nunchaku models available for Selphie to use throughout the course of the game, they are:

 Nunchaku 
 * Flail
 * Morning Star
 * Crescent Wish
 * Strange Vision

Limit Break
Selphie's Limit Break, Slots, allows her to cast spells at random without expending them from her spell stock. Each spell can be cast up to three times in succession. The player can "Do over" the Slots indefinitely, although each "pool" from where the spells are drawn is limited in what spells it contains. In the game's PlayStation version it is possible to "cheat" while executing the Limit Break: before selecting a spell, one can open the disc cover and the enemy will not attack, thus one can "Do Over" until one encounters the desired spell. Aside from the usual magic encountered throughout the game, Selphie also has four spells solely available for her in Slots:


 * Full-Cure - Restores all party members' HP and removes all status effects.
 * Wall - Casts Protect and Shell on all party members.
 * Rapture - Wings appear and carry enemies away. It does not work on bosses or flying opponents.
 * The End - The party instantaneously wins the battle. Works against all enemies apart from undead creatures and the percentile range for this particular slot coming up is low.

Card Match
After Balamb Garden becomes mobile, Selphie becomes available to challenge to a match of Triple Triad. When not in Squall's party she frequents the Balamb Garden second floor classroom (possibly updating her site on computers) where she can be challenged.

Creation and Development
Selphie was the second character, after Squall, Tetsuya Nomura drew for Final Fantasy VIII. It has been noted that he intentionally gave her an impractical hairstyle; the reasons for it however are unknown. When he first designed Selphie, Nomura drew her in overalls; however, he realized none of the other female characters would even be wearing a skirt, and while Quistis was originally supposed to fill this part, he instead gave Selphie a mini-skirt/overall hybrid and let Quistis have a long skirt over pants.

It is perhaps due to reasons of decency involving the skirt that, if one is to Scan Selphie, her scanned avatar cannot be rotated to view from below despite all other scan avatars being able to. On the other hand, the battle camera can very occasionally give a short upwards view on Selphie as it pans around the battlefield, especially if the camera movement option is set high.

Originally there were two other spells slated to be in Selphie's Limit Break, but for an unknown reason they were never programmed in, although they can be accessed with a Gameshark. When used, the animation is of the Fire spell. These two extra spells are:
 * Percent - cuts all enemies by 93.75% of their current HP.
 * Catastrophe - the ultimate offensive spell, more powerful than even Apocalypse.

left|thumb|200px|The Percent Limit Break center|thumb|200px|The Catastrophe Limit Break

Musical Themes
Selphie's theme is considered to be the song "Ami", a song on the game's original soundtrack. This is appropriate to Selphie's friendly and bubbly nature as the name means "Friend" in French. A notable time the song plays is when Irvine is cheering her up before they start planning the Garden Festival together.

Pocket Station Memorycard Icons
An icon sprite of Selphie appears in the Pocket Station memorycard file manager.

Dissidia Final Fantasy
Selphie makes a cameo in Dissidia Final Fantasy as a tutor from the in-game manuals. Selphie breaks the fourth wall as she claims that she is playing the game alongside the player. Selphie says she needs to play more of DDFF to cheer herself up after failing her exam, but she gets stuck on the boss battles.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Selphie appears as a trading card in the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game. She is depicted with artwork resembling her Triple Triad card.

Kingdom Hearts series


A younger Selphie shows up in Kingdom Hearts as a resident of Destiny Islands. Rikku from Final Fantasy X was initially meant to be featured in her stead, but due to her name being to similar to Riku, another character in Kingdom Hearts, Selphie replaced her. Selphie is still good friends with Tidus and Wakka from the Final Fantasy X cast, as well as with Sora, and the rest, and spends a lot of time keeping Tidus and Wakka in line. She uses a jump rope instead of nunchaku, and is available as a sparring partner for Sora early in the game. Once Sora, Riku and Kairi are swept off the island, she is left behind.

In Kingdom Hearts II, Selphie is seen back on the islands in some cutscenes with Kairi. She is wearing a typical school girl uniform this time around, and mentions Tidus and Wakka are "all wrapped up in their ball game", who are never actually seen in the game.

She is voiced by Molly Keck in the English version of the game and by in the Japanese version.

Trivia

 * After Balamb Garden becomes mobile, when the party members are not assigned as player characters they can be seen wandering the Garden on their own. Selphie is updating her website in the second floor classroom, and sometimes wears her cadet uniform.
 * The Ragnarok is always piloted by Selphie whenever she isn't in the player party. If Selphie is unavailable, the Ragnarok is piloted by Zell, and if both are in the player party, Quistis takes the reins.
 * If the player takes Selphie to meet the chef on Balamb harbor after having liberated the town, it is revealed Selphie's favorite food is "Ms. Moogle's Cake".
 * Selphie harbors what some would call a "crush" on Laguna Loire, which develops after first learning about him in the group's first experience of Laguna's time. She even creates a shrine dedicated to Laguna on her web site. In this page, the player can review the contents of all the Timber Maniacs magazines (a magazine for which Laguna used to write) found throughout the game. It can be accessed on Squall's study panel on the Second Floor classroom.
 * Official artwork in the game shows Selphie playing a guitar (possibly electric) during the concert at Fisherman's Horizon, indicating that Selphie knows indeed how to play an instrument.
 * Selphie has her own expression: "Booyaka!" It is used by her on her web site as a greeting. She states that she wants to spread the lingo, but fails miserably. (In Japanese it is "Mamimumemo!" - which is the "M" row in the Japanese alphabet.)
 * Selphie's weapon were called "Nunchaku" in the NTSC versions of Final Fantasy VIII, but in the PAL versions and some walkthroughs they are known as "Shinobou" due to nunchaku's status as an illegal weapon at the time.