Selphie Tilmitt

Selphie Tilmitt is a playable character in Final Fantasy VIII.

Appearance and Personality
Selphie is a childish, hyperactive sort, who is always looking to have some fun. However, she is not stupid, and has a flair for electronics, with her running her own website, being the head of the Garden Festival Committee, disarming missiles and piloting an airship during the course of the game. She often says a lot of cutesy things and tries to bring Squall out of his shell, much to his chagrin.

Selphie most often wears a short yellow jumper, and is lethal with nunchaku.

Story
Selphie Tilmitt grew up in an orphanage run by Cid Kramer and his wife Edea, along with several other friends such as Squall Leonhart, Seifer Almasy, Zell Dincht, Quistis Trepe, Irvine Kinneas, and Ellone. In time, they grew up and would be separated; Selphie eventually moved to Trabia and became a student at Trabia Garden. The Garden did not promote the use of Guardian Forces, but Selphie's first Junction with a GF happened during an outdoor training session, when she found a GF inside a monster she was fighting. Selphie soon completed her training and transferred to Balamb Garden in order to take the SeeD exam. Upon the transfer, she began to rely heavily on the use of GFs during the missions, and in turn began to lose most of memories of her and her friends in the orphanage.

Selphie first appears near the beginning of the game when she unknowingly encounters Squall. The player has an option of taking her to Balamb Garden's Directory or not. During the SeeD exam in Dollet, Selphie appears to Squall and Zell as a messenger from Squad A. Depending on what response the player gave earlier, Selphie might recognize Squall as the person who helped her around Garden. Selphie remains with the party for the remainder of the SeeD exam, and ends up as one of the four students who pass the exam and become SeeDs.

For the remainder of Disc One, Selphie assists Squall and others on the various tasks they have to do and is part of the Gateway Team during the assassination plan against Sorceress Edea in Deling City. In the beginning of Disc Two, she and the others manage to escape from D-District Prison, only to learn that Galbadian missiles have struck Trabia Garden and are to be launched at Balamb Garden. While Selphie is worried about everyone at her home, she stops moping and convinces Squall to split up the party; one team headed for Balamb Garden, the other team headed for the Galbadian missile base. Selphie and her team go to the base with a Galbadian vehicle and disguise themselves as Galbadian soldiers (much to her dismay). After playing cool with the guards and tampering with the controls, Selphie and co. get discovered by the soldiers soon enough and attempt to escape - only to get ambushed by BGH251F2 which is quickly destroyed, but traps the team in the base. While the other two teammates mourn on their fate, Selphie is still hopeful that Squall knew why he chose the team selections. In quick thinking, Selphie also gets the party to hide inside the destroyed BGH just as the missile base is destroyed. The machine is sent into the ocean and eventually washes up in Fisherman's Horizon, where Squall's team is.

Squall and the party eventually visit the destroyed Trabia Garden, where Selphie reunites with her old friends. She, like everyone else, recalls her past in the orphanage, and comes to accept that her Matron is now the Sorceress Edea. Aside from using the GFs at Balamb Garden, she also confesses that one time she found a GF after defeating a monster. She junctioned it for a while, but she couldn't remember its name. Aside from that, the story would focus on Squall and Rinoa from Disc Three onward, so Selphie acts as a supporting character and helps defeat Ultimecia.

Selphie has no real love interests in the game, although fans would often pair her with Zell (because they share similar personalities) or Irvine (because of their hinted affection towards each other in the past).

Weapons
Selphie utilizes Nunchaku and upgrades of that weapon, such as a mace. Her Limit Break, Slots, allows her to cast spells without drawing, at random. Some weaker spells, like Cure and Thunder can be cast up to 5 times. The player can "Do over" the Slots indefinitely. She also has four spells that cannot be cast without Slots:

Limit Break

 * 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.
 * The End - The party instantaneously wins the battle. Works against nearly all enemies, including bosses, even Omega Weapon. It does not, however, work against undead creatures. Ultimecia cannot be harmed by this either.

Originally, there were two other spells slated to be in Selphie's Slots, but for an unknown reason, they were never programmed in, although they can be accessed with a Gameshark. These two extra spells are:


 * Percent - cuts all enemies' HP by a certain percentage
 * Catastrophe - the ultimate offensive spell, more powerful than even Apocalypse

Triple Triad

 * A Level 10 Card, notable for one of its highest point A.
 * Carries no elemental attribute.
 * 1 Card can be refined into 3 Elem Guards.
 * To obtain:
 * Win a card game against Selphie's friend in Trabia Garden.
 * Win a card game against the CC Group in the Ragnarok Airship in Disc 4.

Creation and Development
Selphie was the second character that Nomura drew for Final Fantasy VIII, second to Squall Leonhart. It has been noted that he intentionally gave her an impractical hairstyle, reasons are unknown. When he first designed Selphie, Nomura drew her in overalls; however, he realized that none of the characters would be wearing a skirt. While Quistis Trepe 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.

Kingdom Hearts series
A younger Selphie shows up in Kingdom Hearts as a resident of Destiny Islands. She is good friends with Tidus, Wakka, Sora and the rest, and spends a lot of time keeping Tidus and Wakka in line. She uses a jump rope instead of nunchaku, which is the closest non-weapon object to one. She has a version of her battle stance in the original game, like all other Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts.

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

In both games, she is voiced by Molly Keck in the English versions and by Mayuko Aoki in Japanese.

Selphie Tilmitt