Time for Edward to finally hit it. Congrats!

Steak said:

The sequel walked this ship back hard. For good reason, it's tacked on and ridiculous. Rydia should have been Cecil's other wife to symbolically complete his dominion over the two halves of the world. Hence why she abandons white magic and becomes a master of the dark arts to compliment Rosa's skill set. The game neglected to go into it, but it's fair to assume the 10 years she was separated from Cecil were spent preparing for their reunion.

He literally killed her mother, bombed her village, and then more or less adopted her and then weaponized her. She's more like his adoptive daughter than a potential wife, and the mere idea causes me distress. It's like shipping Haydee and Edmond Dantès.

FRien said:

He literally killed her mother, bombed her village, and then more or less adopted her and then weaponized her. She's more like his adoptive daughter than a potential wife, and the mere idea causes me distress. It's like shipping Haydee and Edmond Dantès.

There was a 10 year difference from her perspective. If Rydia has adoptive parents, it's Leviathan and Asura. From Cecil's perspective, Rydia is the one who set him on the path of redemption. When she told him her name, it was the same as forgiving him, and at the time, the bond that was cemented between them was that they'd both lost their homes. She gave him hope.

Her return might have also been the biggest flex in the game, utterly destroying the monster that was picking off the party one by one, before revealing herself to stand side by side by with Cecil again against Goblez.

Unfortunately from that point on, the game fails to reassert the old paradigm where Cecil is her de facto guardian or establish a new one where things might have likely moved in another direction. She's simply back and until you visit the Feymarch, that's it for her. That all of the sudden, not only is she not dead, but she's a powerful and young woman, there's no having to get to use this. Nor does Rydia acknowledge changes in the party, in particular Cecil's new identity as a paladin.

Suffice to say, Edge is a late comer to the party, and his story is more or less resolved immediately. Practically speaking, his character would be split in two and reintroduced in FF6 as the Figaro brothers, who are much more deserving of any recognition.