Fang and Vanille *spoiler*

[Serapy]

Did you know that Fang used to be a man in the original plot?
Square-Enix changed thier mind on Fang's gender during the middle of the game's development. Due to thier deadline, they did not have enough time to change the scenes between Vanille and Fang. They only changed the model of Fang's and some dialogues.

Fang was originally a guy.

Source:
Final Fantasy XIII Update - PlayStation 3 News at IGN (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/103/1037157p1.html)

Now, you should start visualising Fang as a man and then re-think the whole storyline. Suspect anything?
With Fang being a man, I think that everything between him and Vanille would make more sense. Consider:
Vanille touching Fang's boobs
Fang pulling Vanille's skirt
Calling her a partner
and more.

The point of this thread is that if Fang was still a man, you all would automatically assume that Fang (male) and Vanille are in a relationship. Just like Snow / Serah. Lol, typical ...

But Fang is a female now, and you all assume that they are not lesbians, just sisters. Why? There's nothing wrong with lesbians, you know. They don't explicitly say 'I love you' to each other, why? It's just how the Japanese culture works.

Conclusion: they changed Fang's gender while the importance of between Fang and Vanille remains the same due to SE not having enough time to re-change everything. This proves that Vanille and Fang have a strong bond with each other. They are lebsians.

You know... if you actually consider Fang and Vanille as sisters, what about Lightning and Hope? Lightning and Hope are obviously brothers/sisters to each other. But yet they don't have that strong bond like the one Vanille and Fang have.

[Imperfectionist]

Yeah I kinda suspected they might be lesbians from the start. I mean friends would've made sense if Fang hadn't said she was her partner. As would sisters, if they looked similar. The only other way they could've meant it would be like 'partners in crime' kind of thing but meeehh.

[Shlup]

But Fang is a female now, and you all assume that they are not lesbians, just sisters.

I don't know where this "you all" is coming from. I've thought they were in a relationship all along.

That's interesting that Fang was a dude though. I admit, I think I would have preferred that. I like strong-chick-Fang, but... I can't help it, I don't swoon over girl-girl relationships like I do hetero or even guy-guy relationships. *shrug*

[Raistlin]

Now, you should start visualising Fang as a man and then re-think the whole storyline. Suspect anything?
With Fang being a man, I think that everything between him and Vanille would make more sense. Consider:
Vanille touching Fang's boobs
Fang pulling Vanille's skirt
Calling her a partner
and more.

The point of this thread is that if Fang was still a man, you all would automatically assume that Fang (male) and Vanille are in a relationship. Just like Snow / Serah. Lol, typical ...

I disagree. None of that stuff you have under spoiler tags (which aren't spoilers at all) is remotely persuasive to even hint at that conclusion. The second one was to check the advancement of her l'Cie brand (which is weirdly high up on her thigh). The third is all about context, and the first part would be weird for even lesbians to do upon being very emotional and relieved to see each other after now knowing if the other person was dead or alive. You even stated that SE did not have enough time to change all of the scenes, and if Fang was a guy Vanille's hand would simply be on his chest, which is perfectly innocent; you can't selectively ignore that part.

You pointing to Lightning and Hope is weird, because those two haven't known each other for as long and they're different people. Not all relationships (platonic or sexual) are exactly the same.

EDIT: I'm not ruling out the idea that they are lesbians. I just have yet to see any evidence to support that conclusion.

[Loony BoB]

I'm sorry, where's the proof? Some touching? If that's the case, I can probably provide proof of a Sazh/Vanille relationship pretty much equally. Likewise, Hope also likes Vanille. Ever consider that Vanille might just be a cuddly person? She hugs everyone. She's touchy-feely with everyone. Fang lifts up her skirt, but she also encourages Lightning to pull open her top saying "Don't be shy" - basically, when it comes to checking up on brands, Fang doesn't hold back. :p

As for the supposed boob grab, I really think people are reaching when they go to that. I've seen girls touch each others boobs on numerous occasions without any sexual intention.

Like Raist, I wouldn't rule it out completely, but I see nothing to support it unless you're going to start clutching at straws. And, as said earlier, I could do the same for Vanille and either of Hope or Sazh.

[arcanedude34]

I'm confused as to who on this forum has said that they are more like sisters rather than lesbians. Seems to me, general consensus is (even if only as a kinda affectionate mockery a la cross-dresser Cloud) lesbians.

[Serapy]

Well, as for Lightning and Hope,
Lightning continues to support Hope, since her mother didn't come back. Hence, a good bond.

Hmmmm, I think Sazh likes Vanille a bit too much. Vanille occasionally appears in Sazh's flashbacks. In his flashbacks, Vanille never really existed. Why? He thinks about her, so she gotta pop up every once in a while. Normal, right?

[Psychotic]

With Fang being a man, I think that everything between him and Vanille would make more sense. Consider:
Vanille touching Fang's boobs Uhh... :erm:

[Loony BoB]

Hmmmm, I think Sazh likes Vanille a bit too much. Vanille occasionally appears in Sazh's flashbacks. In his flashbacks, Vanille never really existed. Why? He thinks about her, so she gotta pop up every once in a while. Normal, right?
I have some long, thin tubes that are in my cutlery drawer in my kitchen. These tubes are used to suck up drink from a cup to a mouth. Would you like to reach for and grab at them?

In all seriousness, you can't be serious. :p

[arcanedude34]

I have some long, thin tubes that are in my cutlery drawer in my kitchen. These tubes are used to suck up drink from a cup to a mouth. Would you like to reach for and grab at them?
Ahaha, win.

I dunno guys, I think Fang/Hope is pretty probable. I mean, she did like, look at him that once.

[FFIX Choco Boy]

I see it more as a mother/daughter relationship, with lesbians being the next possibility in line. Actually, I suspected Fang to be Vanille's mom for a while until I realized that the middle name of their full names were what tribe they from.

[Ezme]

I see it more as a mother/daughter relationship, with lesbians being the next possibility in line. Actually, I suspected Fang to be Vanille's mom for a while until I realized that the middle name of their full names were what tribe they from.

Thank god for that. I was beginning to think I was weird. Half way though I did think: "I bet it gets revealed that fang is vanilles mother...."

[Loony BoB]

I am of the impression that Fang feels very responsible for Vanille on some level, whilst at the same time Vanille is extremely caring for those people that she gets to know. With this in mind, pretty much all of the different relationships you can think of could be put together. Mother, sister, lover, friend. But for me, without any real solid reasoning, the two of them are just two friends who have built up a bond to the point of feeling like family. And given what history they have together, this is entirely understandable.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

Well, as for Lightning and Hope,
Lightning continues to support Hope, since her mother didn't come back. Hence, a good bond.



Wait, what? Maybe it was an innocent mistake/typo, but Hope is a guy. Also, his mom is dead, so why would she come back? Same goes if you meant Lightening by "her".

Unless you meant, Hope's father but the game no longer references him after he is taken away. All we can assume is that he is alive.

I do agree that Lightening becomes like a big sister to Hope throughout the game though.

[Serapy]

Lol, yeah ... I meant to put 'his' instead of 'her', sorry!

[Oz37]

And I am offended when people ignore the beauty of a platonic relationship. There is definitely enough subtext to believe in a relationship between the two, but not at all definitive.

Why must two characters be "in love" to love each other? The only answer that makes complete sense from beginning to end of the game is that they are platonic. It's all about context.

Fang refers to Vanille as her "partner": Well, duh! What else would she call her when they are talking about how they were on a mission. Fang is very militant and plain spoken. When she says partner, she doesn't mean "playmate".

Boob grab: It's actually not even a grab, but a placement upon the chest. It's a hug, for goodness sake, and in a video game. Hand placement isn't necessarily going to be 100% accurate.

"I'll tear down the sky if it'll save her...": When one considers what all they have gone through together, being the last of their kind and of their likely non-incestuous family, it's not surprising Fang feels so strongly. I'd go through fire for my best friend, and my love for him is nothing more than platonic.

Basically, you can take it however you want, but the argument for a romance is much less founded than a friendship/familial relationship. /rant

[DMKA]

I'd try finding a more reliable source than IGN...

And nothing in the game that I can recall made me think their relationship was anything beyond a friend, or at most, sisterly relationship.

Vanille touching Fang's boobs kind of ruins your theory though, seeing as well, if she were a guy, she wouldn't have had boobs.

[Mirage]

It offends me that people are so quick to say, "THERE'S NO WAY THEY'RE LESBIANS!" like it's so wrong. It's not. And if Fang was a guy, it would pretty much be a given that they were a couple.

And I don't touch other girls' boobs without sexual intentions. ;) I'm sorry.

"I'll tear down the sky if it'll save her. . ."

It offends me that you're assuming everyone is saying they can't be lesbians because they think it's wrong.

Even if you don't grab other girls' breasts without it being sexual, it doesn't mean no other girls can!

I've grabbed other guys' asses on numerous occasions without having any sexual intents, and I don't think that's too different.

[Roogle]

I certainly think that the dynamic between Fang and Vanille would be perceived much differently if Fang were male.

I cannot possibly hope to understand the type of bond that forms between two people who went through as much as Fang and Vanille with what we were given in the game. If the game elaborated more on the nature of their relationship and their interactions, then maybe I would understand it more. I am not sure if I would have been more quick to say that they were explicitly in a romantic relationship if Fang were male, either.

[ljkkjlcm9]

You're all missing the one thing that stuck me the most about Fang.

She is the definitive military soldier.
Male or female. She will do whatever is necessary to get her objective done. Vanille was her comrade in arms. Soldiers are willing to die for their fellow soldiers at any point. They protect each other, and they never leave a soldier behind. While, yes I did see them as friends, I saw Fang's care for Vanille as that of a solider loving and willing to die for a comrade in arms, and Vanille just being a sweet girl who loves and cares for those who care for her in return. Vanille cared extra for Fang, but she was sweet and kind and loving to the entire group. Fang however felt for most of the game that these new L'cie had a different goal than her and Vanille. Even at the Final Boss she was willing to do what she thought her mission was despite everyone else. She was resistant to all of them, while Vanille was not. They were not her allies, they were not her comrades in arms... until of course after everything.

And that would work whether Fang was a guy or a girl.

THE JACKEL

[BG-57]

I agree that we don't have enough information to truly tell what their relationship is. Most likely they are not blood sisters since they come from different clans (Dia and Yun). I can see they have at least a big sister-little sister interaction though. Oerba was a communal style society so it's likely they thought of themselves as one large family.

[Cloudane]

There's no evidence either way but the fact that this debate comes up so many times here and other FF forums certainly seems to indicate that one way or another a "lovers" message came across to many people.

Personally I think they are. There's no single time when there's concrete court-submissible evidence but there seems to be a lot of subtle imagery that seems to suggest it's that way.
Sometimes sexual intimacy is just not sledgehammered. Recently I've been rewatching DS9 and a good example of this approach was one-to-one links between Changelings, beings that revert to a gelatenous state that can merge. There was enough subtle suggestion to think "hmm I wonder if that's a sort of sexual experience for them, it looks like it" but it wasn't stated as fact (at least not until several episodes later when it's stated that 1-to-1 links are indeed "like that").

I'd have to agree that if it was a guy (interesting that she was originally supposed to be) there'd be much less questioning of it and more talk of Fang/Vanille/Hope love triangles and such. I doubt many people are being genuinely bigoted; differing sexuality is pretty much accepted these days. I think it's just not yet reached a stage where we instinctively recognise a same sex relationship unless there's "proof" (probably tongue related)

It would've been braver for the creators to make her a female from the beginning and explicitly stated as in a relationship, but subtlety isn't a bad thing - it was certainly far better handled than the cringe inducing portrayal of homosexuality in FF7, IMHO.

[Miriel]

I figured they were in a more than platonic relationship pretty soon after they introduced the two characters. The fact that Fang was originally a guy made a lot of sense too.

I dunno, I think it's silly to automatically assume that they were ONLY platonic simply because there was no overt evidence that proves otherwise. I mean, just as easily I could say that they were a lesbian couple, and I would need concrete proof that they were actually heterosexual.

For me, it just was very evident that they loved each other as more than just friends or as sisters. No shocking revelation, no "ah ha!" moment. It's just how I viewed their relationship almost straight away.

[Skyblade]

You're all missing the one thing that stuck me the most about Fang.

She is the definitive military soldier.
Male or female. She will do whatever is necessary to get her objective done. Vanille was her comrade in arms. Soldiers are willing to die for their fellow soldiers at any point. They protect each other, and they never leave a soldier behind. While, yes I did see them as friends, I saw Fang's care for Vanille as that of a solider loving and willing to die for a comrade in arms, and Vanille just being a sweet girl who loves and cares for those who care for her in return. Vanille cared extra for Fang, but she was sweet and kind and loving to the entire group. Fang however felt for most of the game that these new L'cie had a different goal than her and Vanille. Even at the Final Boss she was willing to do what she thought her mission was despite everyone else. She was resistant to all of them, while Vanille was not. They were not her allies, they were not her comrades in arms... until of course after everything.

And that would work whether Fang was a guy or a girl.

THE JACKEL

I disagree. She lacked the discipline and teamwork of an ideal soldier.

Her own mission was void from the beginning, with her brand frozen. And her role in the rest of the game was not to complete any particular objective, not even to help her friends with theirs, but simply to protect them, however she could, whether they wanted it or not. She took up arms against them more than once.

She was also very unused to working as a team. The rest of the group functioned as a cohesive unit (apart from Hope's early insistence on backstabbing), but Fang was always very quick to leave her support behind and take the entire burden on herself, needlessly, whether she could handle it or not.


Anyway, back on topic. I had thought that the idea of Fang and Vanille being in a relationship was a fairly widespread one, and certainly not one that the majority of fans shouted down as an impossiblity. They may not all suscribe to the idea themselves, but almost every fan I've talked to has agreed to the possiblity.

[Hot Shot]

If Fang was originally male who was attracted to Vanille (which I'm not too sure if it's true or not), it doesn't mean that they are lesbians. I mean, that's just lazy writing imo. If they are gonna change a character, then they obviously will change the scenario. Serapy made it seem like everything else in the game was the same when Fang was a man (ie the relationships between other characters). The article said that Fang became female at the expense of Lighning's sexiness. I mean the relationship dynamics would probably have been vastly different. Like a male Fang would act more of a big brother type to Vanille, so the way they interacted with each other might have been different (there might have been less physical contact with each other). And the term partner does not hint at lesbianism. It probably means they have been through a lot together and stuff. I see Fang as a kind of big sister to Vanille.

And Kiyenna, we don't think lebianism is wrong, we just don't believe that they are lesbians. As far as I'm aware, nobody seemed homophobic on this subject. So don't be too prepared to think the worst of people's character.

[ljkkjlcm9]

You're all missing the one thing that stuck me the most about Fang.

She is the definitive military soldier.
Male or female. She will do whatever is necessary to get her objective done. Vanille was her comrade in arms. Soldiers are willing to die for their fellow soldiers at any point. They protect each other, and they never leave a soldier behind. While, yes I did see them as friends, I saw Fang's care for Vanille as that of a solider loving and willing to die for a comrade in arms, and Vanille just being a sweet girl who loves and cares for those who care for her in return. Vanille cared extra for Fang, but she was sweet and kind and loving to the entire group. Fang however felt for most of the game that these new L'cie had a different goal than her and Vanille. Even at the Final Boss she was willing to do what she thought her mission was despite everyone else. She was resistant to all of them, while Vanille was not. They were not her allies, they were not her comrades in arms... until of course after everything.

And that would work whether Fang was a guy or a girl.

THE JACKEL

I disagree. She lacked the discipline and teamwork of an ideal soldier.

Her own mission was void from the beginning, with her brand frozen. And her role in the rest of the game was not to complete any particular objective, not even to help her friends with theirs, but simply to protect them, however she could, whether they wanted it or not. She took up arms against them more than once.

She was also very unused to working as a team. The rest of the group functioned as a cohesive unit (apart from Hope's early insistence on backstabbing), but Fang was always very quick to leave her support behind and take the entire burden on herself, needlessly, whether she could handle it or not.

As I said, the only person she saw as her comrade, was Vanille. The rest of the group were outsiders and were only getting in the way of her completing her mission. She used them as necessary, but was willing to ignore them anytime they got on her way.

THE JACKEL

[Arumat]

Hah. Wow, late.

I've played this game more than once thoroughly (most will chime in and claim they have, too.) And my POV doesn't change - I do believe there's more than some run of the mill platonic relationship between Vanille and Fang. By that I mean more than 'Old Yeller saves Travis because he loves him' scenario. Am I looking too deep, no. You could compare it to the way Snow is with Serah. Oh, okay, sure, they're to be married but back to the old saying: Fang was once a man. Hmm .. How does this change the story? I don't know. To me it's still the same as what it was meant to be, minus some transgendered pixels. Adding in there is the scene where Fang calls Vanille her partner. Baww, there's many ways to interpret this, but in this case, I am using it to back up my side.

MY point I'm getting across here is Snow is all over for defending Serah because he loves her, both in a, "I will take care of you for ever." Way, and, "I love you, let's marry and have babies." Way. Fang, I'm sure would love Vanille in both ways if possible to conceive at this point. Anyway, of course, there will always be an overwhelming mass of left-wing supremacists who could have (insert x amount) of information and evidence in front of them and who would still disagree. Much like a criminal defense attorney, but hey. This isn't court. Until games can have full on homosexual relationships, there will be feuds. .. Heh, maybe even then, let's not rule anything out, people are hardheaded.

All in all, who cares? This thread is dead anyway. I just needed to 'Insert coin'.

[Hollycat]

I've grabbed other guys' asses on numerous occasions without having any sexual intents, and I don't think that's too different.

0_0



stay away from me, there is a difference between a slap and grabbing. the later is.... really creepy, and downright gay really.