History of Barret Wallace

Barret was one of the original ideas to be included in Final Fantasy VII. The game only had three playable characters at first and he was one of those three. The other two characters were Cloud Strife and Aerith Gainsborough. During early production it was decided that one of the player characters should die. The decision came down between Aerith and Barret. The producers ended up choosing
Aerith because they thought that Barret's death would be "too obvious".

Barret from the movie Advent Children

Barret's name is based on the Japanese pronunciation of the word bullet. That is why they chose the gunner as his character class. He is also the first black playable character in the Final Fantasy series. When the movie, Advent Children was being created, the movie animators decided to go with a different look because they thought he looked too much like Mr. T of Hogan's Heroes fame.

Barret is the leader of the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE. His group opposes the ruling company Shinra, and their idea of using "Mako" energy as a power source. AVALANCHE believes that it is killing the planet. AVALANCHE hires Cloud Strife as a mercenary and Barret follows Cloud in pursuit of the game's antagonist, Sephiroth.

Along their journey, Barret encounters his former friend Dyne. Dyne forces Barret to fight him and Barret defeats him. After the battle, Dyne kills himself. Through a flashback you learn the history between Barret and Dyne. They were both fleeing Shinra, who destroyed their town and killed Barret's wife. Along the way Dyne slips off a cliff and Barret grabs his hand. A Shinra soldier who is pursuing them shoots and destroys Barret's right hand, and Dyne's left. This causes Dyne to fall and supposedly die. Barret adopts Dyne's daughter, who was also fleeing with them, and has someone create a gun to put in place of his lost hand.

After Dyne's death, Barret admits that his hatred for Shinra is solely for revenge and that he was using the "saving the planet" idea just as an excuse. Barret eventually gets his thoughts straight and switches his goal to saving the planet and helps Cloud defeat Sephiroth.