Hi everybody. When I was a child I played FF3 (Final Fantasy 3) where my job was “Onion Knight”, and one NPC also used it as a slur I think. Since the original game was in Japanese, I assumed it was a direct translation. I have since wondered where does the phrase come from? Does it have history in Japan? Did they just make it up in tbe game? A google search brought to my attention it also exists in Dark Douls, which is also Japanesr, but could simply refetence FF3..
I’ll appreciate your help since this is bugging me for decades.
Thanks!
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There’s been some theories around onions being slang for poor people, and the onion knight being a sort of joke on the idea of a hobo knight. Other theories include the shape of the armor being caricature of actual armor sets, that the creators thought of as looking like onions.
However, the mystery is lost to time. The creator said in an interview that he’s completely forgotten what his thought process was when he came up with it. Personally, given Japanese humor, I assume he just thought it was funny.
Characters named after food is all over Japanese kids’ media. It does stick out a little bit in the Final Fantasy series where that’s not as common, but in the broader cultural context, it fits right in.
Funny enough, Dark Souls also has a knight with onion-shaped armor.
as a japanese kid who played Final Fantasy 3 at the time I also felt たまねぎ剣士(Onion Knight) sounded strange to me like whats up with onion? I asked my parents but they had no clue whatsoever. as the game progressed I thought they just tried to mean beginner as onion but as you may know at the end of the day onion knight is the strongest job in the game. so now Im pretty sure because of this twist they chose onion but IDK why.
一皮むけると強いから?
Hiromichi Tanaka (the game designer for FF3 and others) said in [an interview](https://s.famitsu.com/news/202004/27197480.html):
「兜が、たまねぎの芽が出た状態に見えたから、「たまねぎ剣士でいいじゃん」って（笑）。」
“Since the helmet looked as if an onion had sprouted out of it, I said, “Isn’t Onion Swordsman fine?”(laughs)”
No lie, when my hair gets to long and falls around my head i refer to it as my “Onion Knight” look :p
Just ask Ser Davos