a small question on popularity

[Marky Tee]

so after starting ff13 and also reading through a few threads on here ive noticed something
all the wimpy cry baby teen boys are always (quite rightly) hated
such as tidus, vaan and this incarnation, hope

so what i want to know is
howcome its alright for vivi to be a wimpy cry baby girlpants and still be much loved?

if the answer is simply because he is vivi then i can live with that

i love that lil guy

[Del Murder]

Just because a man cries doesn't make him a crybaby. Tidus (living in his abusive father's shadow), Hope (losing his mother), and Vivi (discovering why he exists) all went through a lot of tragic stuff so I think their reactions to those situations is for the most part justified. For Vaan...I'm not sure. I don't remember him crying all that much. Maybe you think he's a crybaby because he wears a vest with no shirt underneath?

As for why people like Vivi more than those other characters, well that's simple. He's tons cuter. He also doesn't have some of the 'flaws' these other characters have. Tidus suffers from poor voice acting and that's one reason many people dislike that character. Vaan doesn't have much of an influence on the plot of his game so that makes him one of the weaker characters in FFXII, especially for a lead. Hope is hated because he has a very emotional storyline and people will automatically hate emotional teenage boys. For some reason they look passed the fact that he watches his mother die in the opening sequence of the game, and shortly after he gets transformed into the thing he fears the most and on top of all that has to party with the man he feels responsible for all of it. Yeah, he's going to be pretty shaken up by that, as we all would.

[Clo]

Vivi's all existential. Everyone else is just depressing without any philosophy attached. This is my half-assed explanation.

[Roogle]

I think Vivi and Hope fall under less criticism than Tidus and Vaan because the latter group consists of player characters.

You are forced to control Tidus and Vaan for the entirety of the stories for their games. Their attitudes and tone set the pace of the game moreso than the other main characters.

[Vyk]

I can't speak for Hope as I haven't played that game yet. And I only played about half of XII, but that was indeed enough for me to hate Vaan. And not for being a crybaby. But for being a loudmouth in general. That "I'm Captain Basch" crap was -almost- as bad as the infamous "laughing scene" that our dear beloved Tidus burned into our psyches. Basically I hate Vaan for the same reasons I hate Tidus. Only I hate Tidus way more. They're both loud and pointless. And in Tidus's case, completely brainless

Squall has a lot of short-comings in the plot/personality/social skills department that grate heavily on my nerves too

Vivi on the other hand is neither loud, nor stupid (though he has reason to be ignorant as he's an artificial life form learning about the world), and he actually has a point to the plot. He moves the plot forward in a productive way. Instead of hampering it down or (in some cases) drawing it to a complete stop, the way those other guys do

I don't really care for Final Fantasy IX, but in comparison to Tidus, Vaan, and Squall, I will defend Vivi till the end. He was actually one of the things I really enjoyed about 9. Really enjoyed. I could sympathize with him. And his cuteness wasn't sickening or over-emphasized

And Del makes a good point for Hope, though I haven't experienced any of that in the game. I can imagine a margin of empathy for the character with all that in mind. Reacting in a reasonable manner is natural. With characters like Tidus, they like to over-react, unreasonably

[Jessweeee♪]

Vaan is whiny? He kinda exploded at Basch, yeah, but he got over that pretty quick. That's probably the only instance I can think of. You don't even have to see the story from his point of view. Once Balthier and Fran join the party permanently it's not about him anymore. He's about as immature as any other 17 year old, sure, but he's a pretty laid back guy.

[Wolf Kanno]

I feel Tidus is only whiny cause quite frankly, I find Jecht very charming and I honestly felt he was just doing what he felt was best for Tidus. He's a jerk cause he wants his boy to toughen up and instead he whines about it and sorta misses the point. Course maybe its because I was raised like Tidus and sorta understand where Jecht is coming from unlike you damn Millennials who grew up in the "oh my god I must protect my child from all evil influence" generation. :p

Vaan, is only annoying cause he's frankly lackluster compared to the rest of the cast. He wasn't suppose to be the lead and he's a terribly example of executive meddling.

Hope is annoying cause he's an over actor and despite the justifications Del tries to paint, he's actually much more irrational. He spends the first several hours after his moms death shuffling his feet while trying to figure out what he wants to do with Snow. He has to be talked into the whole vengeance thing despite the fact it seemed like an obvious irrational reaction for him to venture towards that doesn't require bitchy anti-mom Lightning to explain to him and then the game kinda makes the whole scenario absolutely ridiculous by having several cringe worthy coincidences occur to finally goad the damn kid into actually trying. When everything is finally said in done, he spends the rest of the game as a completely well adjusted child and becomes new obnoxious cause instead of whining about being a helpless loser without his mommy, now he's become MR "Fucking" Ray of Sunshine that gives off enough friendship/morale speeches, you would start thinking you were watching Yu-Gi-Oh! :roll2

If there is a legitimate reason to hate him, its because he's a complete rip-off of Ken Amada from Persona 3 except Ken is actually portrayed as a mentally disturbed child thrust into a fantastical situation and the climax of his story is much better. Hope doesn't lose all hope after he realizes he's been wrong about Snow and acting like a douche for 20 hours. Ken on the other hand actually thinks about killing himself after his confrontation and then spends much of his time afterwards debating about how he's going to move on past revenge.

Snow unknowingly makes the situation worse and makes the player actually hope Hope succeeds (curse his goofy name!) whereas Ken spends his time with his focus for revenge and actually starts to see he's not the evil SOB he thought he was and then spends time torn between revenge or not. Ken is just a better written character overall whereas Hope is a bit whiny. Throw in the fact the story loves Hope and constantly throws him into your face along with Vanille and its not surprising so many people got sick of the little bastard. Ken is just a better character overall and he's not whiny or a crybaby at all, instead he's someone who has forced himself to grow up faster mentally so he can get revenge, he's more of an adult than most of the cast. Ken changes himself of his own free will to get revenge and when everything is over, he now has to face the difficulty of going through life without a purpose. Some of the most endearing moments for the character is when he finally lets his emotional guard down and actually starts to act like a kid. You just want to hug the guy cause he's so mentally strong and his life is hard and painful. He's 4 years younger than Hope as well.

Hope on the other hand whines about trying to figure things out and is constantly being led around by all the other characters and told what to do with his life. He follows them like a yipping puppy. Its downright sickening. He acts like a damn 6 year old until Lightning finally slaps him around and makes the kid take his mouth out of his dead momma's *@# and actually grow a pair. He's not strong emotionally and sadly the whole experience of watching him grow is painful unless you seriously have a soft spot and find it uplifting but quite frankly I kept wanting to find his dead momma's corpse and slap it around cause she raised a pansy who can't do anything for himself. He's worse than Son Gohan and that's saying something...

Vivi... He has to deal with something that is very difficult and quite frankly its the type of problem where you can't simply say or do anything to make the situation better. He does whine but he also doesn't need 10-15 hours to realize he's competent. After the first freaking dungeon Vivi snaps out of his whiny attitude and becomes a competent member of the team. After the events of Dali and the Black Waltz, the character grows tremendously and doesn't spend the next few hours whining about how everything is hopeless and just being a bundle of emotion. He lets it simmer inside him and we witness later moments when he's true feelings show. Vivi is a stronger character than Hope, much like Ken is a strong character. He rolls with the punches and tries to cope as best as he can but the stories shows they struggle with it. Its not like everything is fine and dandy afterwards (like Hope) instead you watch them to continue to grow as the story goes along... except in Vivi's case where the writers chicken out but you can't win them all. :eep:

[blackmage_nuke]

You cant hear Vivi since theres no voice acting. Whining becomes 10x more annoying when you have to listen to it.

[Bolivar]

Because Vivi is a black mage, he gets a pass because he's "old school" regardless of whatever he says or does.

I can understand why people don't like Tidus, Vaan, and Hope (hell we have tons of explanation to look to in this thread) but I liked them all as characters.

[Flying Arrow]

Voice acting is almost 100% of the reason, I think. Squall is barely bearable as it is, but imagine if he was fully voiced? Mother of god.

I'd also like to point out that I think people are maybe getting a little bit tired with the way SE write their characters. Angst is one thing, but just the fact that it's become so stock is really stupid. On their own, I don't think any of the characters mentioned in this thread are particularly awful (except maybe Tidus). There was an interesting idea around Hope, but SE's writers were clearly too clueless to do anything good with it. One thing that I really liked about XII was that it mostly portrayed mature characters dealing with problems like adults. I didn't even find Vaan all that whiny. Like the mystic healer girl or perky young jailbait, angsty teenager is just another stupid cliche that SE really need to start working around

Another problem is the fact that the game often vindicates the whiners. Usually at some point they 'grow up' and things get fixed, but no one ever really gets punished for being an obnoxious headcase and that's because the games never really portray this kind of introversion as a flaw.

[Vyk]

All very good points FA. I'd agree with everything except the voice acting. Because Squall bothered me -almost- as much as Tidus. Though I will agree that voice acting has almost everything to do with making it worse. But like you pointed out. SE's writers are probably the bigger problems. Squall isn't someone I'd personally refer to as bearable. I suppose to some people he might be. Considering I agree with people who don't like Vaan. I'd place Vaan lower than Squall on my own unbearable list. And he was voiced. So for Squall its 100% writing. For Tidus its probably just a horrible horrible combination of the two. Vaan lucked out in that regard. And it sounds like I should be glad I have yet to experience Hope..

[Wolfen]

Vivi isn't nearly as annoying as the other characters, and his story is based around whether or not he even exists.

[Flying Arrow]

With Squall, it is 100% writing, you're right.

The thing with Squall is that he's so one-dimensional. I get why he's brooding and all that, but there's nothing else to him, and that's unacceptable for a 45-hour video game. His introversion is supposed to make his romance with Rinoa moving but it doesn't work at all because he has no depth. I appreciate that Square tried to really characterize their protagonist, but the thing is that he needed to have more to him than he did and it needed to be fleshed out. As Squall is, he's kind of just baffling and needlessly rude to people and it's kind of smurfing annoying. If I went to school with Squall, I'd beat the :bou::bou::bou::bou: out of him everyday and stick him in his locker. That is, if he wasn't the most capable and powerful human being on the planet. :roll2


And it sounds like I should be glad I have yet to experience Hope..

Hope can be annoying, but he's not as bad as people make him out to be. The backlash against Hope is basically why I came up with the 'people are sick of this archetype' idea. Hope's storyline could have actually been really effective, but SE presents it in such a way that makes it an absolute facepalm and leaves the player wondering what kind of moon logic Hope is motivated by.

[VeloZer0]

As Squall is, he's kind of just baffling and needlessly rude to people and it's kind of smurfing annoying. If I went to school with Squall, I'd beat the out of him everyday and stick him in his locker.
Thats funny, because back in school I acted like that quite a bit :D

[blackmage_nuke]

As Squall is, he's kind of just baffling and needlessly rude to people and it's kind of smurfing annoying. If I went to school with Squall, I'd beat the :bou::bou::bou::bou: out of him everyday and stick him in his locker.
Well that makes you the asshole then doesnt it?
I mean Squall just keeps to himself, and you would go out of your way to antagonise him? No wonder he hates the world.

I dont think Squall really clasifies as the annoying category but i can see why people wouldnt like what might be considered a bland character

[Flying Arrow]

I would most certainly be the asshole, but the thing is that I wouldn't expect SE to make a fifty hour game about me. ;)

EDIT:

The more I think on it, the more I figure how hard it is to balance gameplay, plot, and decent character development. For one, it really makes me appreciate VII for actually managing to do it. For two, it makes me think that the ensemble-type cast of VI (or even XIII - yeesh) is the best way to go about writing an FF game these days. The focusing on one or two characters really seems to stifle a lot of stories (VIII, IX, X), and I would argue no matter how interesting SE make a protagonist, 45 hours is far too long for him/her to remain actually interesting without a very solid cast or setting carrying the extra weight around him/her.

[Wolf Kanno]

I actually like Squall, I found him very relate-able... so according to some of you, I guess that makes me a quiet jerk. :p

For me, he was the voice of reason in the party and I found it fascinating watching the stark contrast between how he interacts with the world and what he's actually thinking which to me was what made him a character with good personality even if he was really mixed up at times. Does he go down hill once he lets "love into his heart"? Yes, but to be fair, main antagonist are hardly as interesting once there main conflict was over. I felt Cloud was less interesting as a personality once he got his head straight and Terra was also a bit more bland once she found purpose for her life in the WoR. Personally, I felt Squall was likable by default in VIII cause he's the only reasonable character in the story that is actually thinking as opposed to the rest of the cast who can only afford to act on impulse cause they are trained soldiers (which thanks to their personality traits makes this hard to swallow sometimes) or have Squall come and save their sorry ass cause he's the most realistic character in the game's scenario.

I liked him, take what you will but I like snarky bastards cause to me, they are the only people who don't have their heads in the clouds. :p

[Vyk]

In all honesty, I loathed Squall while playing the game for the first time. So my reasons were not influenced by other people's opinions. But my reasons have since changed. I look back and hate him for being a brooding whiney social malcontent. But back then I hated him for representing, or even embellishing quite a bit, everything I hated about myself in my complete lack of social skills. He had friends. I didn't. He treated them like :bou::bou::bou::bou:. And they stayed. I treated my friends great and appreciated the hell out of them and they all left during high school. I didn't know how to talk to people to even interest them. And he got it for free and was constantly trying to push it away. I knew what he was going through and what he was thinking. But he was bungling it all up and I just felt that were I in his shoes things probably would have been similar, but for different reasons. But he looked like he was doing it on purpose. And for that I hated him. A good life was basically handed to him and he didn't appreciate a lick of it

[black orb]

>>> Unlike the others Vivi is portrayed like a 6 year old boy or something, thats why its ok for him to be a crybaby..:luca:

[Levian]

I guess the reason why I find Hope a bit annoying is because I've seen his character so many times in other works. It's an entirely clichéd character and I was basically just waiting for him to get over everything and enter the obligatory character growth phase. Maybe I'd feel different if I had played this when I was younger, but I didn't, and at this point I'm getting a bit pickier. The character growth in Hope just feels so forced that I can't enjoy him either before or after the change.

Why Tidus is annoying lies mostly in his voice acting, and he takes up a lot of space in the game.

I don't find Vivi annoying however, not sure why. Might be because there's no voice acting, he doesn't really whine all that much and he spends more time being cute than being angsty about being a clone. The black mages theme of the game is just one of many themes of the game as well, it doesn't spend an overly amount of time on it. Still, I found it to be an interesting side story.

I don't have an opinion about Vaan, don't know that much about him despite being near the end of the game.

[Wolf Kanno]

In all honesty, I loathed Squall while playing the game for the first time. So my reasons were not influenced by other people's opinions. But my reasons have since changed. I look back and hate him for being a brooding whiney social malcontent. But back then I hated him for representing, or even embellishing quite a bit, everything I hated about myself in my complete lack of social skills. He had friends. I didn't. He treated them like :bou::bou::bou::bou:. And they stayed. I treated my friends great and appreciated the hell out of them and they all left during high school. I didn't know how to talk to people to even interest them. And he got it for free and was constantly trying to push it away. I knew what he was going through and what he was thinking. But he was bungling it all up and I just felt that were I in his shoes things probably would have been similar, but for different reasons. But he looked like he was doing it on purpose. And for that I hated him. A good life was basically handed to him and he didn't appreciate a lick of it

I disagree about him having friends cause friendship is a mutual relationship. His comrades forced upon him there friendship despite his protests to the contrary. The rest of the party were a bunch of happy go lucky high schoolers who treated the whole situation like it was a silly school trip as opposed to Squall who was the only one who treated their situations as it was, a military operation.

I feel it is ridiculous to believe that just because you talk to someone occasionally or happen to be thrown into a group experience means that you become friends and that is what I felt Squall was portraying. Connecting to people you vaguely know but happen to chat with or team up with occasionally doesn't mean they have surpassed some social standard and automatically get into the "friend zone". Of anything, I felt that Squall's relationship with the party shows that the bond between two people has to be deeper. As the story goes along, Squall begins to care about his comrades even more and eventually sees them as friends as opposed to teammates or underlings. A bond of friendship is not so simple because its foundation is brittle and shaky if its built on simple circumstances. It can become a deep bond but only after something more substantial is placed there to create a more deep and exclusive union. Zell and Selphie treat Squall like he's there best friend despite only meeting him and maybe knowing him as a child but even then it seemed Squall was anti-social as well. Its only through their experiences together as a team working towards a common goal and seeing both the good and the bad in a situation that Squall begins to see them as more than just people he's mixed up with, but rather as close allies.

Certainly Squall's misgivings about opening himself up to others is a roadblock he has to overcome, but I feel most players of VIII ignore the very childish nature of the people trying to reach out to him. They only start to get through to him when they finally have things in common to relate with him that goes beyond simply being teammates, or classmates, or growing up in an orphanage together. Before their adventure, their only means of reaching him were circumstantial offerings. He may have rejected their efforts to be his friends but I feel their efforts were shallow at best, and Squall was looking for something more substantial but had to face his own inner weaknesses to finally get it. Its why I feel Rinoa works for him, cause he needs someone who is willing to smack him over the head and tell him to get over himself. I feel everyone needs someone like that. ;)

[VeloZer0]

I feel everyone needs someone like that.
You had me until the end. :p

[Vyk]

Ha, well, a very well thought-out and worded argument. And I'd probably have to agree. But I don't think I'd ever deny I originally hated him due to projection anyway. I imagine it probably does still cloud my judgement of him. But I guess its unfair to say he's a jerk to people, when he never asked to socialize with them in the first place