Shadow is an enigma to those whom he joins on the quest to save the world. At first, he appears as simply a killer for hire. "He'd slit his mama's throat for a nickel!" proclaims Edgar when you first meet him. He is never seen without his dog, Interceptor, and aside from that, no one knows anything about the man.

   However, as the game progresses, he begins to show indications that maybe he does care about something after all. For instance, on the boat to Thamasa, when he advises Terra that there are many in the world like him, who have killed their emotions, and when he rescues Relm from the burning building, justifying his actions by saying that he only wanted his dog back.

   Those who have been paying close attention, though, will see that there are very strong indications that it was far more than just wanting his dog back. This is perhaps Square's most commonly known rumor that has not been completely proven : Shadow is Relm's father.

   The clues are many, but never does Square make it obvious. Relm and Shadow are the only ones who can use the relic called "Memento Ring". Shadow claims that his dog, Interceptor, eats strangers, but Interceptor seems quite fond of Relm when you first meet her. And then there's the matter of Shadow's hidden dream sequences. There are four you can get in the World of Balance, in the course of which, he is a man named Clyde working with his friend Baram on a huge train robbery. Baram gets severely wounded, and asks Clyde to finish him off so that the authorities don't catch him and torture him. Clyde can't do it, and runs off, leaving Baram behind. Clyde ends up in Thamasa, where a woman with a dog approaches and helps him.

   In the World of Ruin, if you didn't wait for him on the floating continent, you find Relm in the same place you would ordinarily find him if you do save him, and whichever one you save has a dream sequence. If you save Relm, she has a dream where she and Strago and a dog are inside her house, wondering if her father will ever come home. Strago sends the dog out to find him, and the dream ends. If you saved Shadow, he dreams of a dog coming to him, to fetch him, but he refuses to go back. Of course, you can only get one or the other, and you will never see Shadow's fifth dream unless you got the four earlier dreams in the World of Balance, so it's not as obvious as it appears if you don't play through the game a few times.