I think it's time for Hope fans to stick up for the kid! (SPOILERS)

Browsing through this FFXIII forum, I find that so many people despise and hate Hope.

I loved him, to be honest. I thought he was developed extremely well throughout the gaming, changing from a whiney, weak person (but who could blame him? he was only 14 when he experienced her own mother fall to his death after being forced to Pulse by the Purge) to a strong, determined person with the help of Lightning. All this added to his adorable personality, I thought him to be a very good Final Fantasy character; one of my favourites, for sure.

Anyone else agree? And no haters please :)

I agree with pretty much everything you said. People hate teenagers though, so there's really nothing we can do about it :(

Actually, I like Hope more than snow :p

Hope is a far better character than the failures that Vaan and Tidus/Meg Ryan were. I actually didn't feel the need to stab him when he talked. His voiceover was great, and his personality was acceptable.

Hope, for first half of the game can be summed up by "waaah my mommy" and blames the man who was trying to save her. Later, after about a dozen mental break downs, he plots to murder Snow which despite how many people argue is a "normal reaction" to a traumatizing event, i can assure you that it isn't.

After Hope and Snow "reconcile" (that is, after his attempted murder fails) the rest of the game continues without further mention of it. It's as if nothing happened. I'd also like to point out Hope's "daddy issues" where he insists his dad an "irresponsible" parent. Except when we meet his dad that doesn't appear to be the case at all. His dad seems like a pretty decent parent.

There were times when Hope was quite annoying but it's understandable...I thought he was a little crazy when he was trying to kill Snow O_O but I really don't like Snow so that's ok!

Hope eventually grew onto me so now I almost always put him in my party because of his high magic stat!^^

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Originally Posted by Shin Gouken

Hope, for first half of the game can be summed up by "waaah my mommy" and blames the man who was trying to save her. Later, after about a dozen mental break downs, he plots to murder Snow which despite how many people argue is a "normal reaction" to a traumatizing event, i can assure you that it isn't.

After Hope and Snow "reconcile" (that is, after his attempted murder fails) the rest of the game continues without further mention of it. It's as if nothing happened. I'd also like to point out Hope's "daddy issues" where he insists his dad an "irresponsible" parent. Except when we meet his dad that doesn't appear to be the case at all. His dad seems like a pretty decent parent.

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Hope is a kid, and he saw his mother fall to her death with his own eyes. He saw Snow as being responsible for her death so he wanted revenge. This was a very human response especially since he's a kid. Saying you didn't like him because he "cried" about his mom is harsh to say the very least.

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Originally Posted by Xurts

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Originally Posted by Shin Gouken

Hope, for first half of the game can be summed up by "waaah my mommy" and blames the man who was trying to save her. Later, after about a dozen mental break downs, he plots to murder Snow which despite how many people argue is a "normal reaction" to a traumatizing event, i can assure you that it isn't.

After Hope and Snow "reconcile" (that is, after his attempted murder fails) the rest of the game continues without further mention of it. It's as if nothing happened. I'd also like to point out Hope's "daddy issues" where he insists his dad an "irresponsible" parent. Except when we meet his dad that doesn't appear to be the case at all. His dad seems like a pretty decent parent.

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Hope is a kid, and he saw his mother fall to her death with his own eyes. He saw Snow as being responsible for her death so he wanted revenge. This was a very human response especially since he's a kid. Saying you didn't like him because he "cried" about his mom is harsh to say the very least.

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And he's only fourteen years old; he wasn't even physically or emotionally mature yet, but he was forced to be because of the situation he was in. Obviously, he was going to miss his mom, on top of everything else he had to deal with, because it's obvious he was so close to her.

And you never know, the dad may have been a bad dad, but then decided to be good because of the purge and what was happening, and realized that he was indeed a bad dad, and that he should have been a good one. Who knows how the dad was before.

I don't like Hope cause he's a whiny and more obnoxious rip=off of Ken Amada from Persona 3 even down to his backstory. Ken was 10 smurfing years old and was less obnoxious than Hope was. Ken also pulled off being a very disturbed child who lost his innocents whereas Hope does pretty much act like a kid all the time despite the fact he should be old enough to be trying to act like an adult so he looks kewl.

My problem is that Hope is a pretty emotionally weak 14 year old and I feel people try using that too much for his defense. If he was 10 or even 12 I could understand his issues but he really came off as a whiny little momma's boy that she had babied all his life and made him completely unprepared for the real world from flashbacks.

Also, Hope saw Snow trying to rescue his mother and while I feel its fair for him to blame Snow for her death he spends the game acting like Snow punched her off the bridge and laughed about it, his anger is far too severe and his logic for revenge is very fallible even for a angsty teen kid. He should have been having more issues trying to rectify the fact he saw Snow helping her. Not to mention he spends the first several hours trying to figure out if he was going to punch Snow or cry in front of him. Hope comes across as the type of guy whose gonna slit his wrists the first time a girl breaks up with him.

Even weirder is how his personality completely changes and now Snow's like his big brother for the rest of the game and he spends the rest of the title making up some of the worst "cheer up" speeches I've heard in a game in years...

Despite all this, I still hate Vanille more than Hope.

I like Hope. I like him after Sazh and Vanille. :)

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

Despite all this, I still hate Vanille more than Hope.

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Agreed, I never liked Vanille either. She acts like a 5 year old? Especially at the beginning (that whole part with her pretending to shoot Snow made me wanna puke)

I don't really recall the game pushing that Hope's dad is evil. Maybe absent, but that is families of today I'd guess.

I don't know why everyone thinks he had good development. All that happened is that for the first half of the game he was a crying bitch all the time, then a very quick switch happened and he suddenly turned into a kid who gave all these "moving" speeches.

Yeah, real character development.

When I first saw Hope and Vanille it reminded me of Thomas and Cecile in Suikoden III. Thomas is also doubt-filled and shy, with a traumatic loss of his mother (elaborated more in the manga). And Cecile is also spunky and reckless. Eventually I realised that Thomas is not as judgmental as Hope, and he deals with his grief in a more mature manner.

Clearly this was a case where the writers needed conflict between characters in the party, which is a good thing. But unlike the conflict between Lightning and Snow, this came off as a bit too ham-handed. We know that Snow did his best to save Hope's mother, so it's hard to sympathize with Hope's point of view, since we know he's wrong.

I never liked Hope because everytime he was on screen I was scared he wasn't gonna pull out a knife and slash his wrists. Also, he blamed Snow for his mothers death, when he had nothing got to do with it (another FFXIII flaw mind you).

"Hey Snow! I know what we're doing today!" *stabs*

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Originally Posted by Rocket Edge

I never liked Hope because everytime he was on screen I was scared he wasn't gonna pull out a knife and slash his wrists. Also, he blamed Snow for his mothers death, when he had nothing got to do with it (another FFXIII flaw mind you).

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Excuse me? Snow didn't directly cause his mother's death, but he did get the ball rolling for it. Unintentionally so, but still . . . And even he took the blame for it at the Estheim residence, so there's that.

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Snow didn't directly cause his mother's death, but he did get the ball rolling for it.

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PsiCom started the ball rolling for it. The way I see it they were all already dead, Snow just gave them a chance to live.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

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Snow didn't directly cause his mother's death, but he did get the ball rolling for it.

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PsiCom started the ball rolling for it. The way I see it they were all already dead, Snow just gave them a chance to live.

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And went about it in the absolute wrong way.

Had he not started an armed resurgence and recruited people from the trains no one, including Hope, would have survived. WTF was he supposed to do differently? IMO that was like the only smart and defensible thing he did in the entire game, and it ironically ended up with some psycho kid trying to kill him.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

Had he not started an armed resurgence and recruited people from the trains no one, including Hope, would have survived. WTF was he supposed to do differently? IMO that was like the only smart and defensible thing he did in the entire game, and it ironically ended up with some psycho kid trying to kill him.

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ya totes!:excited::thumbsup:

I like Hope, but I think they could have come up with a better reason for him to follow Snow.

Hope fan reporting in. He has good development tbh. There were times during the game where I thought he was gonna come around and suddenly forgive Snow, but it was dragged out longer, which I thought was more realistic.

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Originally Posted by Sword

He has good development tbh.

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People keep saying this, explain his development?

People say he 'matures' and it's all realistic. But he turns from a total wimp who won't hold a gun and hates Snow for reasons he doesn't know but is afraid to confront the clearly happy and friendly fellow, to an inspirational hero who delivers 'moving' speeches in about what...2 days? So how is that development? It's like they didn't know what to do with him at the end so gave him a 180 degree switch to call it development.

I completely sympathize with Hope's feelings to Snow:

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Originally Posted by Final Fantasy Wikia

Snow inadvertently continues to fuel the boy's rage by obliviously saying things such as that it is foolish to fight if you die, and that one must only look out for themself. It is only when Hope is alone with Snow by a building's edge in Rivera Towers that Hope finally loses control and blasts Snow off the edge. Much to Snow's surprise, Hope approaches Snow with Lightning's pocket knife, ready to kill him, finally revealing himself to be Nora's son, when his intent is prevented by a PSICOM attack from afar. Injured, Hope falls off the side of the building, and Snow lets go of the ledge to catch him, shielding the teenager and ultimately breaking his fall to the streets below. Snow is greatly injured by his feat, causing Hope to put his hatred to rest after the latter apologizes for putting Nora in danger, and the two head to Felix Heights amicably.

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After Nora dies he says to Hope that its foolish to fight if you die... disrespecting Nora in the process, at the very least that's how Hope would see it.

Yes after Snow saves Hopes life Hope decides to put aside his grievances with Snow and go with him, so hope forgiving him is completely rational in my eyes.

Other then that I have absolutely no problem with the way Hope is, if your mother had died before your eyes when you was 14 following the traumatic events such as the purge I would be completely surprised if half of you guys handled it as well as Hope did, I mean one minute your watching fireworks with your Mom and the next your thrown into a train that is going to take you down to Pulse the place you have been brought up to believe is Hell on Earth, yes very traumatic indeed.

Anyone who chooses to hate hope then respect him for how much he grows throughout the game then that's your choice, I find him to be one of my favorite characters (after Vanille).

Hope's reaction to hating Snow is pretty realistic. Even if not a teenager, a normal adult with lesser strength in character would too find it easy to place the blame on someone and Snow is unfortunately an easy target. Epsecially how he seems so cheerful even after someone slipped from his hands and fell to her death. That's just a front but Hope barely knows Snow. In his eyes it probably seems as if Nora's death doesn't matter at all to Snow.

But after Snow rescues him and they have that little talk Hope finally understands his mentality and forgives him. I admit the buddy buddy thing was a little too swift but I don't think they have time to show their 'relationship' blossomming slowly :p

I started out hating Hope because he was whiny and what not, but as I thought about it, it made more sense and he grew on me. Yeah, to me it was clearly not Snow's fault, and I think even in his mind it wasn't Snow's fault either. But to blame an organization like Psicom, or Cocoon as a whole, is just way out of reach. Blaming an individual is much easier to take your frustration out on and get legitimate revenge. And then when he realizes/finds out that it's eating up Snow inside, and Snow really is only trying to help/willing to die to protect him, he has a realization that Snow was only doing what he could, and he was not really to blame. It makes sense to me. Best character in the game? No. Worst character? No.

I hate Sazh, I hate Snow. Vanille is tolerable. Hope is good, Lightning is good, loved Fang.

THE JACKEL