The Last Dragon Knight

As I'm sure you know, I am firmly of the conviction that Cid Highwind is a Dragoon. Dragoons are also called Dragon Knights and Lancers, depending on your translation. We all know about the proclivity of Dragoons to jump insanely high and skewer the Bad Guy on the ends of their lances. No one can catch air like a Dragoon. We all know they wear armor forged into the shape of a Dragon. Cid doesn't wear armor, but he does jump high in three of his Limits. That bit alone isn't enough to "convict" him of being a Dragoon...

But there's more, a lot more.

Kain was the first Dragoon we became familiar with. His blue dragon armor, his jumps, we all know about that. Did you know Kain is blond? That his last name is Highwind? And from Kain's father, who was also a Dragoon, we can see that the talents of a Dragoon are inherited. Even so, none of that means that Kain and Cid are related. But it makes you wonder. They also are both left-handed, and wield the same type of weapon, pole-arms. In fact, one of the lances Cid can use is called the Dragoon Lance.

And let's remember, Cid is a Captain who served with Shin-Ra in the Shin-Ra Wutai War, which makes him ex-military. What ex-military do you know that prefers pole-arms to guns?

There's even more than that. Cid has a Limit called Dragon, which allows him to summon a wyrm-type dragon to transfer HP and MP from the enemy to him. Interestingly enough, the Lancers of Final Fantasy V are able to use a skill called !Lance that allows them to do the exact same thing. The dragon they summon is also a legless wyrm, and it also transfers HP and MP to the summoner. The Earth Crystal grants this power to the four ordinary travelers of Final Fantasy V.

We also know from Final Fantasy VI that jumping is so limited to Dragoons that in order to perform that type of attack, a person must wear Dragoon Boots. That, I think, is enough to make it obvious that Cid is a Dragoon. And here is where we find a very unusual twist. A Dragon Horn will cause a person to jump non-stop...

...So how exactly can it be that a dragon's horn will allow an attack exclusively reserved for Dragoons? Why do Dragoons wear armor in the shape of dragons? Why can Dragoons summon dragons under their own power? Why is one of Cid's most powerful Limits Breaks called Dragon Dive? And just how in the blinking heck can a Dragoon jump so blasted high? Air Jordan's got nothing on these guys.

My explaination: Dragoons are related to dragons. They are imbued with these inherent abilities by dragon blood.

I believe the shape of most Dragoons' armor is to honor the creatures which gave them their extrodinary abilities.

I'll allow that some people can jump quiet high on their own, and that perhaps the Dragoons used their pole-arms as pole-vaults. But if you watch Cid carefully in battle, you will see that when he does his jumping attacks, he jumps some thirty feet in the air. No mere human can do that on their own. Cid also never runs in battle unless he's running away (and he's so funny when he does that : ). He jumps. All characters with short-range attacks except Aeris run to the enemy and attack. Aeris also jumps...but then again, Aeris also floats a little when she casts magic, as does Vincent. And we know that both Aeris and Vincent are not ordinary humans. Apparently, Cid isn't either.

When Dragoons land on the enemy, they usually do it face down, then retreat, without touching the ground by another leap backward. I've just never had the pleasure to see an average human perform such a feat. Cid does place his feet on the ground...still, the leap backward is quite an extraordinary one.

I also find it unusual that Lancers can summon dragons without being Summoners, being trained as summoners, or, in Cid's case, having such a summon materia. Could it be that a special relationship with dragons is what allows the Dragoon to summon them?

The Dragon Dive is what clenches it for me. Even allowing that a really, really good pole-vaulter could jump really, really high, NO pole-vaulter in the known universe can jump six times in a row like Cid does in his Dragon Dive. The dude barely even moves his legs to do that. It's like he can just will himself thirty feet off the ground, with just a slight bending of the knees as a token to what many people have to do to jump even a foot high.

Cid's preternatural agility demonstrated in the mid-air acrobatics of his Hyper Jump also tend to make me think there is something out-of-the-ordinary about him. Gymnasts can perform aerial flips, but something tells me Cid was never a gymnast.

And don't forget, dragons are known for breathing fire...and let's be honest, do we really think that a heavy smoker would have the stamina to fight like Cid does? Wouldn't he rather be weaker than all the other characters just by virtue of the fact that his lungs are so full of tar he should hardly be able to breathe? But he can fight...and his physical strength is really only second to Cloud's.

My own personal choice for dragon ancestor is Bahamut, as you may already know. Why? For one, he's an Esper, and it's already been proven in Terra that an Esper and a human can have children together. Bahamut is also King of the Monsters, which makes him the best choice to father a line of human Dragon Knights that are, for the most part, dedicated to protect king and country.

I might also point out that Ward, despite his bulk, is able to perform a similar Limit, one in which he throws his large anchor in the air, leaps after it, and rides it back down onto the enemy. A harpoon qualifies as a pole-arm, and Ward has blue eyes and blond hair...

A little update: FFIX and FFX both had non-human characters that had the same talents as human Dragoons. Now I'll grant that FFIX's Freya Crescent (who is a formal Dragoon in the game) can jump that high on her own; she's a giant kangaroo rat fer cryin' out loud. BUT! She has several interesting attacks--Reis' Wind (Reis is a character in FF Tactics that was turned into a holy dragon and when her form was returned to human, she still retained many dragon affinities, such as dragon breath attacks, being able to "invite" dragons at a 100% success rate, heal dragons, and super-human endurance), Lancer (like !Lance), Dragon Breath, Six Dragons, and Dragon Crest, an attack that gets stronger the more dragons she kills. She can also use a pole-arm called Kain's Lance, and her ultimate weapon is Dragon's Hair which looks suspiciously like Cid's Venus Gospel. Tell me she has no relationship to dragons or human Dragoons. Then there's FFX's Khimari Ronso, a blue lionlike creature. What are his Overdrives (essentially Blue Magic)? JUMP...LANCET... What are the names of some of the pole-arms he can create? Highwind, Venus Gospel, Kain's Lance... Need I go on?

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