Quina Quen

Quina Quen is a playable character in Final Fantasy IX. S/he is an apparently genderless Qu. 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.

Appearance
Quina is a seemingly genderless Qu, a tribe known for their weird eating habits, long tongues, and poor language skills. However, Quina's eating habits are actually one of his/her greatest skills, as Quina is able to learn Blue Magic by consuming an enemy. 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.

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 taste many different types of cuisine and attain a higher rank of gourmand.

Cleyra
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. S/he leads the party to the Fossil Roo entrance in search for 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 washes up on the shores of Lindblum, frightening several town guards. When Gilgamesh attempts to corner Eiko in Treno, 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 is next recruited by Zidane at Lindblum, where the Qu is attempting to haggle for a Gysahl pickle and finally permanently joins the party.

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.

Equipment and Stats

 * List of Quina's weapons

Quina is a Blue Mage variant, since s/he has the ability to cast Blue Magic obtained from enemies. S/he only differs from regular Blue Mages in that instead of having to be hit by the attack in order to learn it, s/he has to consume an enemy who possesses the attack.

Quina uses Forks as weapons, Despite their odd appearance, they can actually be quite 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.



Abilities

 * List of Quina's Blue Magic
 * List of Quina's Abilities

The "Eat" command is required for obtaining new Blue Magic skills. When an enemy drops below 25% of its maximum HP, Quina is able to eat it. If successful, the enemy is killed and Quina will learn a new skill. It should be noted that each skill can only be learned once and that 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 50% 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. It has parts of the the Qu's Marsh theme inter-spliced with a new techno melody.

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 however, 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 can equip female-only equipment like Lamia's Tiara, while s/he cannot equip the Pearl Rouge add-on.
 * 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.
 * The only FMV Quina appears in is at the game's finale.

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 foodstuff, but most of the time manages to fail at this task both in the storyline and in gameplay.

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