Barret Wallace
"Barret" redirects here. For the Barrett rifle, see M82 (rifle). is a
video game character in the
role playing game Final Fantasy VII. Early in the game, he is the leader of a militant eco-group called "
AVALANCHE," located in Midgar, though this position later passes to
Cloud Strife. He also serves as a supporting character in the
CGI film sequel,
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, where he is voiced by
Masahiro Kobayashi in the Japanese version and
Beau Billingslea in the English version.
The character in the English translation of the game is sometimes criticized as being a
stereotype of
African Americans, due to his speech mannerisms which (unlike in the original Japanese version) are quite different from those of the rest of the characters in the game. His name is a Japanese transliteration of the English word "Bullet."
In the debug room of the English version, he has the alternate name of "Ballet".
Final Fantasy VII and Before Crisis
Barret grew up in the small, coal mining village of
Corel. He was a leading advocate in cooperating with
Shin-Ra in building a
mako reactor in Corel, as he believed that it would lead to an easier life for Corel's people. After the reactor was built â€" much to the dissatisfaction of Barret's best friend,
Dyne, however â€" anti-Shin-Ra terrorists (also known as "
AVALANCHE") attacked the reactor, and â€" believing that they may have been operating within Corel â€" Shin-Ra responded to the incident by indiscriminately burning down the town of Corel, killing many citizens, including Barret's wife Myrna. He and Dyne were not in the village as the attack began, and when they tried to return, they were attacked by Shin-Ra troops led by
Scarlet.
[Barret: "That's how the Corel Reactor was built.... and completed. We all thought it would bring us an easier life. It happened when Dyne and I were out of town for a few days. Corel was burned down by the Shinra troops. All the townspeople........ All my relatives......... Everyone...... Everything......" / Cloud: "Shinra troops? What for?!" / Barret: "There was an explosion at a reactor. Shinra blamed the accident on the people. Said it was done by a rebel faction." ... / Barret: "Not only did they take advantage of me... But I lost my wife, Myrna, too..."(Final Fantasy VII)] Though Barret survived, his right forearm was hit by gunfire and rendered useless when he tried in vain to prevent Dyne from falling off a cliff. Assuming Dyne to have been killed, he adopted
Marlene, Dyne's daughter, and then traveled to
Midgar. He also had gun prosthetic grafted to his arm and began seeking revenge on Shin-Ra, eventually becoming the leader of the second incarnation of AVALANCHE. However, he remained ignorant of the full extremity of the former AVALANCHE
During the game, Barret meets Dyne again at the desert prison beneath
the Gold Saucer, site of the original town of Corel. Dyne, driven insane by the events from years before, survived his fall and became a cold-blooded murderer with a gun-arm in place of his left forearm, as his original was destroyed at the same time as Barret's right forearm. Dyne's insanity became apparent when he announced that he wanted to kill Marlene, believing that her mother, Eleanor, must be lonely without her in the
Lifestream. Dyne then forces Barret to fight him, a fight which Barret wins.
[Dyne: "So...... she's still alive... All right, Barret. I guess that means you and I gotta fight." / Barret: "What!?" / Dyne: "Eleanor's alone all by herself. I've got to take Marlene to her." / Barret: "Dyne.... are you insane!?" / Dyne: "Marlene wants to see her Mom, don't she?"(Final Fantasy VII)] Immediately afterward, Dyne asks Barret to give a pendant to Marlene that had belonged to his wife. Dyne then commits suicide by throwing himself off the edge of the cliff.
Barret traveled as a member of AVALANCHE all the way to the game's final battle with
Sephiroth. He finds personal reason for the struggle in allowing Marlene a future.
2 Year Period
After the Meteor incident, the group went their separate ways. Barret, along with Cloud and
Tifa Lockhart, traveled to Kalm where they told Elmyra of Aerith's sacrifice. Later, while establishing a new Seventh Heaven bar in the newly-built city of Edge, Barret obtained a new prosthetic hand that could unfold into a gun-like weapon. He functioned as the bar's bouncer until he decided to leave Marlene in the care of Cloud and Tifa and search for a new energy source to replace Mako. As can be seen in the beginning of
Advent Children, his efforts led to the discovery of large oil fields.
At the movie, Barret left a message for Cloud about his oil field find. He appeared in person for the fight with
Bahamut SHIN. Barret's new prosthetic can charge up with green energy and fires in a manner reminiscent of his
Limit Break, Big Shot. The attack appears to be quite powerful, able to send Bahamut SHIN reeling, but also rather unreliable, as it would seem to take varying lengths of time to charge up.
Barret has a small role in
Dirge of Cerberus, appearing most notably during the World Restoration Organization's full scale conflict with the Deep Ground organization, where he drives one of the assault trucks.
