The Edwards of FFIV. You know them, right? What? There's only one Edward? Nah nah nah, there's two! Edge's name is Edward as well, Edge's just a nickname to not mix them both. Uh? You thought Edge was his real name? Well, considering the amount of random names Square comes up with, I'm not surprised.
Back to the point. Both Edwards get somewhat underrated, each for their own reasons. Eitheir people don't like Edward because he looks like a coward or just plain weak, or they don't like Edge for some reason. It's fine to not like these characters, or any character for the matter, but let's give these two a chance now.
Edward Chris von Muir
Edward was born and raised in the royal family of Damcyan. He never was one for politics and prefered music. He travelled the land disguised as a bard, and in one of his travels he met Anna and both of them fall in love. Tellah, Anna's father, didn't approve of their union, and so the lovebirds ran away, making Tellah furious, which lead to him go after them looking to get Anna back.
Edward and Anna return to Damcyan only to find it being raided by Golbez's troops and the Red Wings of Baron, who steal the Fire Crystal. Anna protects Edward from harm, and consequently dies. Tellah arrives, alongside Cecil and Rydia, and blames Edward for Anna's death. Tellah attacks Edward, but Anna breaks their fight and explains she is in love with Edward and there's nothing Tellah can do about it. Edward then says Golbez was the one who attacked Damcyan and lead to Anna's death and Tellah swears to avenge his daughter.
Anna is dead, his parents are dead too and his kingdom in ruins; Edward falls into tears. This gets him a slap from best boy Cecil and the latter's request for Edward to join them. Edward then joins and helps them get the Sand Pearl from Antlion to cure Rosa, Cecil's lover, who is sick with Desert Fever and rests in Kaipo. Rosa is now cured and the party decides to protect the remaining crystals and sets off to sleep to then move to Fabul, where the Wind Crystal is, as they believe that will be Golbez's next target. In the middle of the night, Edward hears noises outside and goes check it out, staying near the water where he plays his harp a little until he is attacked by a Sahagin. Then, Anna's spirit appears before him telling him to believe more in himself, words Edward agree with and takes before heading back to sleep.
To reach Fabul, our little party has to cross Mt. Hobs. On the way, they encounter a monk named Yang fighting against Golbez's troops, who, upon being helped, joins the party. Once in Fabul, Yang rushes to the king to warn him about Golbez's attack and Cecil and Edward help him back it up. The king is skeptical at first, as Cecil is a Dark Knight and so the king doesn't find him trustworthy; however, Edward steps in, and being an old friend of the king, explains Damcyan current status and how Cecil helped him, which leads to the king ordering the defence of the castle right away, with the party providing support.
After the fight against the Baronian army, the party gets cornered in the crystal room by Kain, who defeats Cecil, while Golbez's defeats Yang and Edward. Rosa is taken as a hostage by Golbez and Kain steals the crystal. The remaining party then decides to sneak into Baron by ship and get an airship from Cid Pollendina. However, they are attacked by Leviathan on the way and everyone is blown off the ship.
Edward was found near the nation of Troia, wounded, and is taken to a hospital to recover. Cecil, Yang, Tellah and Cid later visit him while they pass through Troia in search for the Earth Crystal and inform him that they're going to fight the Dark Elf. Edward gives Cecil his Whisperweed, which has the power to echo anything that Edward plays on his harp. When Cecil and the others are fighting against Dark Elf and getting decimated, Edward senses they are in danger and forces himself out of bed to reach his harp, despite the doctor's warnings.
Edward starts playing on his harp, making the Whisperweed react. The Dark Elf loses control of himself, which allows the magnetic field to be gone and Cecil and his comrades can now use metalic equipment with no handcap, leading to the defeat of Dark Elf. The party returns to Troia and pays one last visit to Edward, where Tellah tells him Anna was happy to be loved by a man like him. Edward in return tells Tellah to avenge Anna's death and Tellah says he will (and then dies. One journey with Cecil wasted😒).
By the time of the battle with the Giant of Babil, Edward is recovered and commandeers an airship alongside the Epopts of Troia. He can later be found in the Tower of Wishes, praying for Cecil's victory, and depending on the version he can rejoin the party.
Zeromus is defeated and Edward shows up at Cecil's and Rosa's wedding. In the end, he is approached by children who beg him to tell the story of Cecil through the song of his lyre. Edward tells them he would do so, as long as they help in Damcyan's reconstruction. Once they leave, Edward looks at the sky and prays Anna and Tellah are alright in the afterlife.
One year later, Edward holds a celebration for the reconstruction of Damcyan, inviting people from all over the world, including previous party members. Cecil discusses the absence of both Edge and Rydia (wonder what they're doing😏jk), and the security of the Fire Crystal with the castle open to the public. Edward shows him that he alone can open the chamber to the Crystal.
The celebration is cut short (quick, grab the food!) when a soldier brings distressful news about a group of monks in Mt. Hobs.
Sixteen years later, Edward continues to rule Damcyan (he didn't leave music, don't worry) and has gained a personal secretary named Harley, who goes missing when investigating a meteor impact site. Edward, with the company of 3 soldiers, goes after her, and she joins the team on the way back. However, when they return, they encounter the castle surrounded by the Red Wings. Baron requests Damcyan to leave the meteor impact site to Baron. (We're stealing meteor impact sites now? Hey, Theo, could you use Meteor or Twin Meteor a couple times? Like that everyone will have a meteor impact site! There, problem solved.)
Edward and Harvey go through the cave to Kaipo, but Harley gives one of Rosa and falls ill to the Desert Fever (totally not to reference Rosa. The After Years totally isn't FFIV all over again or anything🙄). Edward then has to go to the Antlion cave, again, to get a Sand Pearl. Harvey is cured and they board a ship to Baron hoping to talk with Cecil. Edward notices something suspicious when Cecil doesn't recognize the Whisperweed he has given him, allowing him to eavesdrop Cecil's conversation with an unknown person about Baron's plan to attack Damcyan for their Crystal (Edward is true spy of this game).
Edward and Harley return to Damcyan and witness Yang and his ship being swallowed by Leviathan (what's with Monks and water? First, half of Sabin's character development is being in some sort of water body and now Yang is attacked by Leviathan twice in his life?). Anyway, the Red Wings attack Damcyan, with Kain in command. Edward fights him to defend his kingdom, but is defeated, and Kain steals the Crystal. Edward joins Ceodore Harvey, Cecil's son, on his journey back to Baron, where they meet Rosa and Cid, and have a meeting with Kain.
Upon confronting him, they realize it is actually Kain's dark half that defeated his light half (the Mysterious Man/Hooded Man/Kain looking hot for once. Jk, Kain looks hot with whatever appearance he has) on Mt. Ordeals (hm, looks like Kain wasn't hot enough for the light at the time). The Mysterious Man (the real Kain) regains his Jump ability, equips his lance, and fights his dark half. Kain comes victorious and becomes a Holy Dragoon (yay, now you have something more to do than just jump!), and together the group confronts Cecil and the Mysterious Girl that is controling him (what if Golbez controlled the Mysterious Girl🤔? Perhaps that would have prevented his dear brother from getting possessed....).
Not only are they forced to fight Cecil, but Odin as well (you know, the former King of Baron). During the battle, Odin eventually comes to his senses and knocks Cecil out of being possessed by the Mysterious Girl (so much fatherly love). Don't forget we are in Baron's castle while all this happens, and that we're speaking of Edward; he probably brought popcorn to share with everyone while Kain did his thing though.
Back to the actual story, Edward joins the party as they enter the Crater where they fight a boss from each crystal before facing off with the Mysterious Girl and Bahamut. After helping defeating the Creator, Edward and Harley observe the crystal in Damcyan.
Despite being pulled by an elder to discuss Harley's plans to amass the materials needed to rebuild the damage caused to the Blue Planet since the moon meteors nearly destroyed it, Edward sees the spirits of Anna and Tellah and thanks them.
Edward "Edge" Geraldine:
When then kingdom of Eblan is attacked, everyone escapes to the Cave of Eblan. The King and Queen go missing, thought to have been murdered by Rubicante, the Archfiend of Fire, and Edge sets off to fight him and take his revenge at the entrance to the Tower of Babil, but is overpowered.
After Rubicante leaves, expecting the prince to become stronger, Edge meets Cecil, Kain, Rosa and Rydia. They ask Edge to join them, but he refuses, claiming to have to fight Rubicante alone. Rydia burst into tears, not wanting to see anyone else sacrifice themselves like Yang, Cid and Tellah previously had. Not wanting to see a pretty girl cry, Edge joins after being healed by Rosa, declaring them all fast friends.
Thanks to Edge's secret Ninjutsu, the party sneaks into the Tower of Babil. They find Edge's parents, the King and Queen of Eblan, seemingly normal at first until they transform into some grotesque monsters. During the battle, they are momentarily brought back to their senses and bid farewell to their son before taking their own lives. Rubicante appears and explains it was Dr. Lugae who did that and that he (Rubicante) had nothing to do with it. During their fight, Rubicante tells Edge his emotions will be his downfall, but Edge retaliates and unleashes his latent powers.
With Rubicante's defeat, the Seneschal and several guards arrive expecting to find the Archfiend. Edge informs them of the urgency to retrieve the crystals and stop Golbez, and that he must help save the world. After asking the Seneschal to look after the kingdom in his absence, the party arrives in a room with the seven stolen crystals, but fall through a trapdoor and end up escaping on an abandoned Red Wings airship, which Edge calls the Falcon (very original).
Now in the Underworld, the party makes way to the Dwarven Castle due to not being able to pass above lava (so they really have no where else to go). After receiving King Giott's orders to find the eighth Crystal in the Sealed Cave before Golbez, the party visits a recovered Cid in the infirmary, who upgrades the Falcon to withstand lava. Edge is ordered to help out when he is busy talking to Rydia, and Cid can see he is infatuated with her.
After almost being smashed by a wall and obtaining the crystal, back at the entry of the cave, Kain falls into Golbez's mind control again and takes the crystal. After returning to the dwarves and following Giott's advice regarding the Mysidian Legend, Cid upgrades the Falcon to drill a way back to the surface and the party heads off to Mysidia where the elder prays for help. The Lunar Whale rises, and with it the party travels to the Moon.
The party finds Fusoya in the Crystal Palace, a Lunarian that had predicted their arrival and was waiting for them. He explains that Golbez is being mind controlled by Zemus and joins the party to neutralize the barrier upon the newly awakened Giant of Babil. After the defeat of the Archfiends and the CPU, Fusoya rouses Golbez's memories, and his relation to Cecil is revealed. The older men leave to fight Zemus, while Kain helps the party escape the falling Giant.
Despite Edge blaming Kain for the Giant's appearance, Kain makes amends with Cecil (again) and the three decide to head of to the Moon to fight Zemus as well. Rosa and Rydia are ordered to stay behind, and Edge offends the latter by saying "This is work for grownups.". Rosa and Rydia sneak aboard the airship anyway (you know, because Cecil's weak white magic won't do it. They need an actual White Mage and a Summoner that defeats enemies in two turns to survive) and are allowed to join the battle. The five travel through the Lunar Subterrane and witness Fusoya and Golbez defeating Zemus. Edge jokingly tells them they should have "left [Zemus] for [Edge]". Zemus becomes Zeromus and Edge and the others battle him off.
With peace now in the world, Edge becomes the King of Eblan and oversees his kingdom's reconstruction, although the Seneschal has ordered him to stop daydreaming about Rydia and focus on his duties (not gonna happen). At the wedding of Cecil and Rosa, Edge pretends to ignore Rydia when she arrives.
One year later, Edge asks Gekkou and Zangetsu to guard Eblan's castle while he goes to the celebration in Damcyan, but they tell him it ended hours ago, to which Edge replies he will see it for himself and leaves. He heads to the Cave of Eblan and into the Tower of Babil after seeing it glowing; he explores the upper area.
Cecil and the twins are attacked by three Android Soldiers, who later merge into Deus Ex Machina. Edge comes to their rescue and joins them as they keep looking for a missing Rydia. At level B6, they find her, but Edge recognizes it as a fake (liking Rydia to infinity and beyond pays off). The impostor summons lots of elemental summons, followed by Bahamut. The real Rydia arrives and brings Bahamut back to his senses, forcing the impostor to fight the group by herself. The impostor is defeated and fades away, reporting to an unseen entity the "Eidolon system" is complete.
Sixteen years later, Edge helps Rydia rebuild Mist.
During the attacks by the Mysterious Girl, Edge and the Eblan Four infiltrate the Tower of Babil to confront the enemy, but are defeated. They jump out of the tower and land on the Falcon, where they encounter Rydia, Luca and the Man in Black (can you guess who it is?), all of whom Edge recognizes.
Together they round up others to break the force field around Baron Castle. Edge later finds Eblan Castle under attack by a mind-controlled Ifrit. Edge steps in to try to fight him, but Rubicante intervenes. Edge, alongside Rydia who had come too, confront Rubicante, who teaches them the Inferno Band, which they use to fight Ifrit and release him from being mind-controlled by the Mysterious Girl.
At Baron, they defeat the Mysterious Girl and free Cecil from being possessed. On the True Moon, the party faces a lot of recreations of their former foes, who pleads them to strike them down (seriously, some take a tear out of me). This includes Rubicante, whom Edge makes peace with after facing him alone. If he wins, he gains Rubicante's cloak, the Fire Scarf. The party stops the Creator who made the Maenads, the Mysterious Girl's true identity.
The Maenads come to their senses as the Creator attempts to chase the party, and cast a Meteor spell that destroys him. Before dying, they ask Rydia to take care of a little Maenad, who they claim to be their last thing remaining.
Edge leaves Eblan for Mist, where he see Rydia and the young Maenad who Rydia named Cuore.
Leviathan and Asura pay a visit and Asura says it was Edge that invited them.
And that was it for these two characters of FFIV, I hope you liked. They're characters that I really like, but if some of you got a certain introduction to some games through RabToons in a nutshell videos like me, you probably thought they weren't that good characters, as he criticized Edward for being a coward, making him look useless and Edge is literally part of the Outcasts. Stay with some more stuff about them and others:
Edward resembles Gordon from FFII a lot. Not only in their very own appearance, as they're both blonde and their clothes uses orange/red pallets, but both lost a loved one, their parents and their kingdom in the story, and both start more as cowards but surpasse that phase. Also, they're both the princes of the Fire nations of their respective worlds, Kashuan, with the Sunfire, and Damcyan, with the Fire Crystal.
In the original plot of FFIV by Hinorobu Sakaguchi, "after Anna's death, Edward awakens and becomes extremely powerful in battle". However, Akihiko Matsui persuaded him that "a weakling does not stop being a weakling just because his girlfriend dies.".
Edward's Japanese name is Gilbert/Gilbart.
The name was likely localized thusly because of the name lenght limitation of six characters.
Gilbart might be a reference to James William Gilbart, a writer of books about banking who shaped most of the joint stocks banks in the 1800s. The name "Gilbart" also provides the origin of the term "gil", the recurring currency in Final Fantasy, tying with the historical aspect of Gilbart being a banker. To futher show a certain relation, Edward's tale in The After Years involves managing money, most prominently on his challenge dungeon; also the fact Harley can use Gil Toss in battle. In his description in The After Years, it says Edward maintains the balance of the worldwide economy, showing once more how related to money he is.
In Amano's artworks of Edward and opening cutscene of the 3D remake, he is depicted with a lute; in the game itself he plays an harp.
Edward claims his theme, "Edward's Harp", was Anna's favorite song.
While he is a weak character offensively and defensively, Edward's stats can skyrocket past 70, making him possible to achieve the highest stats in the game.
Edge is the junction of the first syllables of Edward Geraldine. It also sounds really cool, so that's good for him.
Edge is director Takashi Tokita's favorite character from FFIV.
Edge has a peculiar relation with fire: his archenemy is Rubicante, the Archfiend of Fire, he fights Lunar Ifrit in his Lunar Trial and Eblan is attacked by Ifrit in the After Years, both summons of fire, he gains Fire Scarf from Rubicante, and his most powerful band attack in The After Years is Ultimate Art: Advent of the Phoenix, which everyone knows is a mythical bird of fire. His first Ninjutsu is also the fire one.
Edge doesn't have his own theme, but "Hello, Cid!" plays during events where Edge takes the spotlight. In his Lunar Trial, the background music is "Troian Beauty"; during Lunar Trials, it's usually the character's theme that plays in the background. "Troian Beauty" might have been chosen to represent Edge's flirtatious side, as the most beautiful women are from Troia in FFIV.
If you notice, in the wiki, Edge's occupation just says Prince, whereas Edward's has both Prince and King, even though Edge does become a King.
Edward's job class is listed as Bard -> Prince for FFIV and Royal for The After Years, but he is nevertheless a Bard.
Eblan is the only nation whose events don't repeat in The After Years.
Eblan's Castle theme is "Castle Damcyan". Well well well, the Edwards are sharing castle themes lol.
On Final Fantasy Record Keeper official English site, Damcyan is misspelled as Damacyan.
Cuore, the name of the Maenad adopted by Rydia, means "heart" in Italian.
In terms of gameplay, Edge remains the same from FFIV to the Interlude and The After Years, with the only difference being that now Steal is Mug in the After Years
In The After Years, while speaking with the Creator, Edward states he knew what the Mysterious Girl was up to from the beginning. You can't say he isn't a spy, for lord's sake!
Edward is right-handed and Edge is ambidextrous. Edge is 2 years older than Edward; he is 26yo in FFIV, 27 during Interlude and 43 in The After Years, while Edward is 24 in FFIV, 25 during Interlude and 41 in The After Years.
Outside of Japan, FFIV is the only game to have two playable characters with the same name in the series.