Quina Quen

Quina Quen is a playable character in Final Fantasy IX. S/he is apparently a genderless Qu who specializes in blue magic, and loves eating frogs. Quina serves as comic relief throughout the game, often failing in his/her eternal quest to consume new cuisine. S/he speaks in broken English, as all Qu do, and will often eat anything s/he sees. Quina's eating habits are actually one of his/her greatest skills, as Quina is able to learn Blue Magic by consuming an enemy.

Appearance and Personality
Quina is a seemingly genderless Qu, a tribe known for their strange eating habits, long tongues, and poor language skills. Quina always wears a chef's hat, and his/her tongue is always hanging out to the middle of his/her chest. S/he wears a salmon-pink overcoat with a baby-pink apron over it, has a napkin tied around his/her neck, and wears white gloves and blue shoes with white ribbons.

Quina has a childlike curiosity for the world and is always ready to explore new locations to find new tastes; when arriving at a new location, Quina is quick to smell and taste-test the local wildlife and cuisine to find special delicacies. The childlike curiosity is Quina's dominant personality trait, as s/he is delighted by the small things in life, and takes the journey as a learning experience. Quina can be reckless, such as when s/he jumps head-first into the canal in Treno after thinking s/he spotted food down there.

Setbacks don't bother him/her much, and s/he is soon back on his/her feet ready for new experiences. Quina has great respect for qus elder to him/her, and at first wants to journey with Zidane because his/her Master tells him to. If the player undertakes an optional event in Quan's Dwelling it is revealed that Quina is on his/her way to become an excellent gourmand because of his/her vivid imagination, and it is hinted Quina has already surpassed his/her Master in the ways of the gourmand.

Although it may seem that Quina is the least involved in the quest the heroes undertake, being more interested in food than world events, and going off on his own numerous times during the story to pursue his own interests, s/he does develop a bond to the party, such as attempting to cheer Freya up en route to Burmecia, assuring Vivi, who is worrying about not being human, that he is, in fact, as human as nearly everyone else in the world, and especially when s/he helps Eiko cook in Madain Sari, teaching her that cooking for friends is at the core of love for food. When Quina is paired with Zidane to go explore one of the shrines, s/he is happy to go with him even if s/he knows Zidane only took him/her because s/he was the one left over when everyone else already left, saying that leftovers are a good thing. In Pandemonium, s/he is seen eagerly helping Steiner try and fight off a monster.

Exposition
Quina first appears at the beginning of the game in Alexandria Castle, overseeing the chefs' every move and tasting most of their dishes. Quina also participates in the Festival of the Hunt in Lindblum under the name "Strange Gourmand". S/he is next seen in Qu's Marsh, and may be optionally recruited immediately after leaving Lindblum.

S/he has a fondness for frogs, and is distressed that s/he cannot catch one. Zidane catches one for Quina, leading the head Qu, Quale, to scold Quina for being too lazy to feed him/herself. Quale asks the party to take Quina around the world so that s/he may visit the other marshes of the world to taste different types of frogs, as frogs are the Qu's delicacy, and attain a higher rank of gourmand.

Cleyra
Though his/her recruitment is optional at this time in the story, Quina is able to make the journey through Gizamaluke's Grotto, Burmecia, and Cleyra with Zidane, Vivi, and Freya while being completely obsessed with hunting for new kinds of food, which s/he refers to as "yummy-yummies". At the party's stay in Cleyra, Quina is upset that the locale has no exotic food to be had, finally settling on a pair of pink mushrooms whose edibility is questionable.

S/he later goes back on its dissatisfaction in order to brighten Freya's mood. When the other three group members teleport to the Red Rose via Black Mage teleportation devices, Quina declines to go with them and flees Cleyra on foot, saying that s/he "no like heights". When Cleyra is destroyed, Zidane, Vivi, and Freya are left believing that s/he died during the destruction since s/he did not teleport out of Cleyra with them.

Regardless if the player recruited Quina or not at an earlier time, s/he next appears back in Qu's Marsh, and if s/he went with the party to Cleyra and was thought dead, it is much to Zidane's relief that s/he is still alive. Assuming s/he is reunited with Zidane at this time, s/he briefly explains that while s/he survived, s/he had "much trouble coming back from Cleyra alone." S/he then inadvertently leads the party to the Fossil Roo entrance in search of more frogs.

Outer Continent
After helping Zidane, Vivi, and Garnet fight and defeat bounty hunter Lani in Fossil Roo, Quina navigates the tunnels with the party and arrives on the Outer Continent, and soon reach the Dwarven village of Conde Petie. Quina immediately rushes in, certain that good food is to be had. S/he makes a beeline for the consumable shop, where the shopkeeper offers to sell Quina a Pumpkin Bomb for 1,000 gil. Quina cannot understand the need to use currency to obtain food, so the dwarf labels him/her is a thief and Quina runs frantically out of the shop.

Upon reaching the Black Mage Village, Quina quickly finds another source of food: a chocobo egg being hatched by two Black Mages. Though Quina longs to taste the egg, the Mages shoo him/her out, but he/she stays and keeps referring to the egg as "delicious" and the mage keeps refusing to give the egg. Returning to Conde Petie, it is possible for Quina to undergo the "marriage" ritual with Vivi in order to access the Sanctuary beyond the village. Quina seems quite pleased with this arrangement saying: "I... so happy".

Otherwise, the player can choose for Zidane and Garnet to see the twin Dwarven guarding the exit to the village, in which case Quina and Vivi will sneak by when they're called to deal with a theft committed by a little girl from outside of the village.

After being allowed to travel through the Mountain Path, the party encounters Eiko, the young thief, stuck on a tree limb. Quina is deterred from eating her when Eiko says that she tastes horrible. This backfires on her, as Quina runs off to attempt to eat Mog, Eiko's pet Moogle, instead. Eiko later mistakes Quina for Kuja, having been reeled in from the river by a fishing pole. However, s/he then stays and helps Eiko cook dinner for the rest of Zidane's party in Madain Sari. This is the first indication that Quina is learning how to be a good gourmand during his/her journey.

Alexandria and Beyond
After the party leaves the Outer Continent leaving Quina behind, s/he swims away from Madain Sari and, with no real explanation, ends up in Treno. When Gilgamesh attempts to corner Eiko there, using the guise of attending a banquet to kidnap her and hold her for ransom against Amarant, Quina pops up, demands food, and scares Gilgamesh away.

Despite this noble act, Quina is once again left behind in Treno, and, thinking a reflection of the moon in the water looks like food, jumps in to try and eat it. S/he washes up on the shores of Lindblum, frightening several town guards. S/he is next recruited by Zidane there after failing to haggle for a Gysahl pickle, and finally permanently joins the party after Zidane pays off his small debt for the pickle. After obtaining Hilda Garde III and collecting and turning over all thirteen Stellazzio coins to Queen Stella, the player can visit Quan's Dwelling with both Vivi and Quina in the party to witness an optional scene where Quan's ghost visits the group.

When the heroes reach Terra, Quina is the only person to candidly interact with the unresponsive Genomes at Bran Bal. S/he attempts to taste a large luminous stone seemingly worshiped by the Genomes, to no avail. When the airship Invincible is used to escape Terra, Quina warps in at the last minute from underneath the ship, a confusing feat which is, of course, not explained. However, Quina's warp idea becomes essential in the party warping down into Memoria.

At the end of the story, Quina is back in the Alexandrian kitchen, cooking up more munchies to satisfy his/her never-ending palate, as well as making sure the other chefs prepare a good meal for his/her friends, who will soon be visiting Alexandria for Garnet's seventeenth birthday.

In Battle
Quina is a Blue Mage and can cast Blue Magic obtained from enemies. Instead of having to be hit by the attack to learn it, s/he has to consume an enemy who possesses the attack.

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 Quina and Amarant, they will become whatever level Cinna and Blank left the party at, if it is higher than the party average. Since Quina's and Amarant's stats grow when leveling themselves, it is not beneficial to level either Cinna or Blank.

Equipment
Quina uses forks as weapons. Despite their odd appearance, they can be powerful in battle. Forks deal random damage, and the odds of dealing higher damage are not affected by Quina's row placement. As such, it is a good idea to leave Quina in the back row. Quina's Needle Fork is a useful weapon acquired early in the game that can inflict Petrification with the Add Status ability. The ultimate fork is the Gastro Fork acquired after catching 99 frogs in the various swamps around the world and defeating Quale.

Quina can equip the Lamia's Tiara, an otherwise female-exclusive equipment.

Abilities


The Eat command is required for obtaining new Blue Magic skills. When an enemy drops below 12.5% of its maximum HP, Quina can eat it. If successful, the enemy is killed and Quina will learn a new skill. Each skill can only be learned once and eating more of the same type of enemy does not increase the attack's power or accuracy.

When in Trance, the "Eat" command is replaced by "Cook". As opposed to "Eat", "Cook" will work on an enemy whose HP has fallen below 25% of its maximum.

If the player is trying to learn a Blue Magic ability from a fairly weak enemy and is worried about killing it before Quina can eat it, they may want to try using a Demi-based ability.

Musical Themes
"Quina's Theme" is named for himself/herself, and plays during the Frog Catching minigame, when s/he washes up in Lindblum, and when s/he first meets Grandma Pickle. It has parts of the the Qu's Marsh theme inter-spliced with a new techno melody.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Quina appears in the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game and is represented in two Aqua-elemental cards. S/he is depicted in his/her Final Fantasy IX render and in his/her Yoshitaka Amano artwork.

Etymology
The name "Quina Quen" is actually a Japanese play on words: The word "Quina" ("kuina") translates as "Eat!", while the word "Quen" ("kuen") is "Cannot Eat..." This point may be true for the character, as throughout the game, Quina is on a personal quest to find new, exotic foodstuffs, but most of the time manages to fail at this task both in the storyline and in gameplay.

Trivia

 * In the game's Spanish version, Quina is referred to as "she", and it is same for Quale (renamed Quera), while Quan is "he". In the German version Quina is always referred to as "he". In the French version Quina is "she" whereas both Quale and Quan are "he". In the Italian version, Quina is said to be female, like Quale (renamed "Quera"), and has rearranged with Roman dialect.
 * Quina is affected by the Lamia's "Entice" ability, like all male characters.
 * If Quina is weakened, Zidane will not take damage in place of him/her with his "Protect Girls" ability like he does to Garnet, Freya, and Eiko.
 * Although the pronoun "s/he" is mostly attributed to Quina, only masculine possessive and demonstrative pronouns like "his" and "him" are used, while the feminine pronouns "her" and "hers" are not. While this could lend credence to the character being male, most languages use the masculine pronouns if the gender is unknown.
 * The only FMV Quina appears in is at the game's finale. S/he was considered being included in the FMV involving Kuja looking down at the weakened Zidane, Vivi, and Freya following their defeat at the hands of Beatrix in Burmecia, but was left out when it was remembered that his/her recruitment by that time was optional. In addition, remaking an FMV to accommodate him/her being there would have been too costly for Square.
 * Quina is the oldest playable character in Final Fantasy IX.

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