Google says this: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpoonyBard I did like this though from there Honestly, Bards have been Spoony since Tellah said it in Final Fantasy for me personally
I'm actually playing through VI Advance right now, almost to the floating continent. Can't wait to put the screws to that evil jester.
Take a cowardly bard. Put the bard next to a cranky old man (the sage "Tellah" mentioned above) whose granddaughter just died, and who considers the bard responsible for her death. Watch the cranky old man beat the bard with a wooden staff while yelling vindictively at the bard in grief and rage. ...Aaaaand then translate this interaction from Japanese into English. In the the 1990s. For a Nintendo system. Suddenly, the enraged, grieving old man is describing the bard as "spoony"! A strangely lighthearted and hilarious choice of wording, poking fun at the bard's excessive romanticism and irresponsibility, compared to his Japanese dialogue (which as I recall is much more ... direct). And that's how you get the concept of the spoony bard. But seriously. Edward (the bard in question) is totally spoony. He's an idealistic romantic who doesn't come with a backbone already installed (he has to grow one, and it takes him a bit). He's also relatively weak in combat even though he has good (albeit sometimes roundabout or random) utility. It's pretty common to see bards in games resemble Edward more than a little. The EQ bard's early emphasis on kooky utility and running away from enemies if needed, while slowly winning via attrition and sustain, certainly fits Edward's mold more than not. On the other hand, the fact we wear plate and are relatively tough does not fit the mold quite so much. Of course, a lot of that is also traceable further back to D&D bards ... and ... (etc. etc.) To be honest though, the line probably says more about the oddities of 1990s video game translation than it says about bards in general. The meme it has spawned has taken it to other levels, especially as writers since then have used Edward as part of their inspiration for writing ridiculous bard characters in fiction. (The bard from Order of the Stick comes to mind, although I don't know how much of an influence Edward was or wasn't on the creation of that comic's bard character). Despite his spooniness, Edward is a surprisingly serious character, and not too much of a caricature. That isn't necessary true of later renditions of the trope.
Isn't there already a spoon item used in the enchanter epic 1.0? Doesn't that make the enchanters the spoony ones here...?
