Quote Originally Posted by Mr Cactuar View Post
There is no backstory for any of the nations, you have no real idea as to why the nations are warring, the reasons as to why the monsters are there are stupid, and there are massive plotholes. How the hell did Penelo and Vaan learn to fight? What does the senate Archadia of the do? Where did the Judges of Archadia come from? What sort of country is Rosaria, whose to say they aren't the 'bad' guys? Why isn't Dalmasca an actual ally of Rosaria? What are licenses, why exactly are they there? They tried to cram waaaay to much into this game, and attempting to deny this is useless.
To try and answer some of the questions.

"How the hell did such and such learn to fight" is a pretty moot point in Final Fantasy. How the hell did Tidus learn to fight? Or Relm? Or Quina? Or Eiko There are plenty of characters in Final Fantasy (and in games in general) you could question how they learnt to fight, but you don't often see those questions raised for those. I don't think it's a particularly important point.

I saw Archadia as being a nation that was similar to how Britain used to be before the English Civil War, in that the job of the parliament (in this case the Senate) is to advise the head of state (the king/queen/emperor/empress/etc) and make decisions as a collective body but not to enforce them. Thus the senate can confirm things and lend legitimacy to decisions made by the monarch but have relatively little actual power except in an advisory role.

The reason that Dalmasca didn't ally themselves with Rozarria was because they valued their independence. They wanted no part of the war between Archades and Rozarria. They wanted to safeguard their status as a nation by remaining out of the way. Obviously had Dalmasca allied itself with Rozarria, it would've made Dalmasca itself fair game for attacks by Archades and Rozarria would've doubtlessly used Dalmasca as a base for their attacks against Archades. Should Rozarria have won the war, they would've probably taken over Archades' territory and would have had little concern for the junior partner of Dalmasca, who may have paid for Rozarria's protection with the surrender of their sovereignty.