Great Hyne

The Great Hyne is a character mentioned in Final Fantasy VIII. Although oral tradition sometimes switch his being either a deity or a person, he is credited for creating mankind, and the first Sorceress ever to exist.

A sorceress is also known as Hyne's descendant for this reason, and as a symbol of respect. The tradition of Sorceresses and the passing down of their powers began through the legends circulating around Hyne. There are two legends made known to the player in-game.

Legends
According to one legend passed down through oral tradition, when the world was created, there exists a powerful god called Hyne. Hyne fought against a large number of monsters, and was overcame with fatigue. He then created the first humans to fight for him, and then went into a deep sleep. When he awoke, he was surprised to find so many humans, so he decided to take away their children. The humans, however, resisted, and a huge battle between Hyne and the humans began. After many years of fighting, Hyne surrendered and gave half of his body to the humans, and then escaped with the remaining half. As it turns out, the other half Hyne ran off with was the one with the stronger magic in existence, but there has been no sight of that half ever since.

The Legend of Vascaroon
This legend was told by a White SeeD named Lina to children on the White SeeD ship.

''Once upon a time there was a person named Hyne. Hyne was the ruler of the world. He became lazy and decided to make a tool to make his life easier. Hyne made a neat tool. His tool could make more tools by itself. Soon there were a lot of tools in the world. These tools were actually people.

''When Hyne woke up, he was surprised because there were a lot of people. Hyne wanted to reduce the number of people, and used magic to burn up a lot of small people. The small people were children. The people cherished the children very much. So the people rebelled against Hyne. Hyne used powerful magic to fight them. The people couldn't use magic, but they had wisdom.

''Eventually, Hyne began to lose the war, because there were too many people to fight, and they were getting smarter. Therefore, he decided to make peace with people by offering them half of his body along with his powers. Hyne cut his body in half and gave the people half as he promised.

''Then, another war started. People began to fight over the power Hyne offered them through his body. This war lasted decades. Finally, King Zebalga and the Zebalga tribe emerged victorious and demanded Hyne's body-half to get its powers. But the body ignored their commands.

''Then, Vascaroon came to the rescue. He appeared before the confused Zebalgas and revealed to them that Hyne's half-body was corrupt and possessed no real power. The body-half was actually Hyne's castoff skin. The Zebalgas were angered by this truth, and decided to destroy Hyne. The Zebalgas never found Hyne. People began to call him "Hyne the Magician" and continued to hunt him for centuries to come.''

Hyne