What does Cecil see in Rosa?

[arcanedude34]

If this were anywhere else, I'd think I was being trolled.

Your thinking I "need a life" loses its worth to me in light of one very, very glaring thing I notice about you: you seem to hate Rosa.

After bashing me for caring about this character, you went on to proclaim your hatred for Rosa as if your view of her "sucking" is gospel truth. You talked about how you loathe a stereotype that wasn't a stereotype when she came around (in fact it's more likely she STARTED the stereotype, and it's especially true that she's the first white mage in the series with her personality type and traits), proving you've written her off as nothing but a cliche. From the instant you wrote her off, you guaranteed you would never see a single thing in her worth noticing. This is like me writing off Rydia as a lame girl power stereotype and saying she sucks for that.

More importantly, you call her a side character when she's not. She's the female lead. The promotional material shows it, the art shows it, her role in the story shows it, everything in the game says Rosa is the female lead.

You want to know the truth? I think you realize there's something more to her that you don't want to admit. Why would you care so much about what one "loser" says about a fictional character you hate, if you didn't realize that on some level what he's saying has merit?

I could have written this nice and soft and flowery and tried to coax you into looking deeper into the character, but honestly? I don't think you would ever want to do that. I think you just want me to be quiet rather than challenge you to question what you think you know as "truth." I don't think anything I say or do would get you to look deeper. It hasn't worked for a lot of people I've met that are like you, why would it start now? So I'm tossing out the naive notion that you might listen, and talking to you openly and head-on.

Admins, mods, I apologize if this breaks any rules or causes any drama you didn't want here, but I had to defend myself AND I had to call him out on it.

Mkay. I don't hate Rosa. I can't hate anyone as paper-thin as Rosa. There's nothing there for me to hate. She's just... there. What I meant by her being a side-character is that she has almost no importance to the overall plot. You have to rescue her a few times, she helps you out a few times, then she more or less becomes nothing but a plot device for Cecil to want to do what he wants to do, until he finds about the Lunarians, etc. I could care less if she's "technically" the female lead, she's still unimportant and (at least for me) hard to get attatched to.

Your idea that she started the stereotype is grossly misinformed, as you seem to think that stereotypes like this were not around before Final Fantasy. Look through games, books, stories, movies, shows, etc. before FFIV came out and I guarantee you'll find more than your fair share of Rosas.

Your arguements about "why would you care about what a loser says blah blah blah" is about the intillectual equivilent of "takes one to know one" (very similar to it anyway) I really don't think you made one good point, and I only stated that you needed a life at first, and only started stating how wrong I felt your position was once people responded to my statement.

By all means, take ff the kid gloves, tell my WHY I should like Rosa. Hell, it's worked before (I used to hate Edward until someone convinced me he wasn't half bad...) I have an open mind when it comes to this kind of thing, but if I can't see a character's merits, then I wont like the character. Plain and simple.

And, by the way, every time I said Rosa sucked, I said something like "imo" or "I'm sick of..." so I'm not saying my view is worth any more than yours, I'm just saying it's my view.

Oh and rubah? I know what minutiae means, and people who obsess over tiny trivial things in literature are just as dorky as people who do it in video games. I meant my response to your statement to cover all forms of media.

[*PaladinCecil*]

Mkay. I don't hate Rosa. I can't hate anyone as paper-thin as Rosa. There's nothing there for me to hate. She's just... there. What I meant by her being a side-character is that she has almost no importance to the overall plot. You have to rescue her a few times, she helps you out a few times, then she more or less becomes nothing but a plot device for Cecil to want to do what he wants to do, until he finds about the Lunarians, etc. I could care less if she's "technically" the female lead, she's still unimportant and (at least for me) hard to get attatched to.

Your idea that she started the stereotype is grossly misinformed, as you seem to think that stereotypes like this were not around before Final Fantasy. Look through games, books, stories, movies, shows, etc. before FFIV came out and I guarantee you'll find more than your fair share of Rosas.

Your arguements about "why would you care about what a loser says blah blah blah" is about the intillectual equivilent of "takes one to know one" (very similar to it anyway) I really don't think you made one good point, and I only stated that you needed a life at first, and only started stating how wrong I felt your position was once people responded to my statement.

By all means, take ff the kid gloves, tell my WHY I should like Rosa. Hell, it's worked before (I used to hate Edward until someone convinced me he wasn't half bad...) I have an open mind when it comes to this kind of thing, but if I can't see a character's merits, then I wont like the character. Plain and simple.

And, by the way, every time I said Rosa sucked, I said something like "imo" or "I'm sick of..." so I'm not saying my view is worth any more than yours, I'm just saying it's my view.

First five sentences are a lie.

Rest of the first paragraph ignores that she comforted Cecil all through his time as a Dark Knight, a stable reminder of love and light, especially the kind he has hidden deep inside him, in a time of blood-stained sins. It forgets she went after him across the desert by herself rather than, like some weepy, weak women would do, waiting back home sobbing over the assumed tragic loss of her love. It fails to recognize the role she had in Rydia getting over her fear of fire so they could reach Fabul, and how her very existence and arrival in the crystal room in Fabul at the perfect moment (if you consider the entire set of events, she likely heard how dire it was and rushed to help him from that) kept Kain and Golbez from killing everyone in the party that day.

Your second paragraph misconstrues my entire point. The SPECIFIC white mage stereotype embodied in Rosa BEGAN with Rosa. Characters similar to her with various mixes of traits and personality quirks have existed in fiction prior to this game, but she is the first female lead in the series to offer this exact mix. As a result, she is the template upon which all later characters in her role are based. Yes, Aeris too. But while we're on this thread, they say there's no such thing as a new story, only a new way of telling it. If Rosa is as unoriginal as you claim, so is any character you've ever liked.

Third paragraph is a cover.

I already know any attempt to get you to look deeper into Rosa is doomed to fail, much as I wish I could naively believe otherwise. You busted right out the gate with how much you think Rosa sucks, and I know psychology. The more you repeat something, the more strongly you hold on to it, the truer it is. You aren't coming into this with an open mind. You're coming into it certain that Rosa is a terrible character, and you'll be seeking every way you can to prove that remains the case. This is not an accusation that you knowingly don't want to see more to her, it's me telling you that when you've already made up your mind on an issue, you go through confirmation bias, even subconsciously. And with this character, it's easy to twist everything from a strength into a weakness. I saw one person do it superbly to the point where she sounded more villainous than Golbez.

I don't see how "I'm sick of..." is a statement of knowing it's viewpoint, but that seems like a non-issue to me beyond that it shows you already made up your mind about her, which blinds you to the possibility that you might not have a full picture of who Rosa is and what she's like. "Truth" is subjective in most cases, sure, but you can't strive to the closest thing you can get to an objective perspective if you already "know" with this much certainty that you're right.

[*PaladinCecil*]

You might be replying to this as I type this, but I felt like I should add on.

You have to understand that for the past year, I've seen a lot of people like you say they were open to hearing me out, or claim they'll keep an open mind. Then when it came down to it, they really didn't want to know. They just wanted to see what I had to say so they could find loopholes in the argument to confirm for themselves that how they saw things was accurate.

After a year, I'm tired of childish games. I'm tired of giving the benefit of the doubt, or thinking the best will come out of something when it never does. I don't want to waste my time hoping for the best with someone who pretends to want to hear me out, but really only wants to go through a drawn-out process with an end goal of feeling validated in their initial conclusions. I don't want to waste my time on such people, and would much rather skip to the end so I can do more productive things with my time.

Self-fulfilling prophecy is more than possible with this attitude, but in my experience thus far, the chances of me turning away someone who's genuinely interested are slim to nil.

[arcanedude34]

First five sentences are a lie.

Rest of the first paragraph ignores that she comforted Cecil all through his time as a Dark Knight, a stable reminder of love and light, especially the kind he has hidden deep inside him, in a time of blood-stained sins. It forgets she went after him across the desert by herself rather than, like some weepy, weak women would do, waiting back home sobbing over the assumed tragic loss of her love. It fails to recognize the role she had in Rydia getting over her fear of fire so they could reach Fabul, and how her very existence and arrival in the crystal room in Fabul at the perfect moment (if you consider the entire set of events, she likely heard how dire it was and rushed to help him from that) kept Kain and Golbez from killing everyone in the party that day.

Your second paragraph misconstrues my entire point. The SPECIFIC white mage stereotype embodied in Rosa BEGAN with Rosa. Characters similar to her with various mixes of traits and personality quirks have existed in fiction prior to this game, but she is the first female lead in the series to offer this exact mix. As a result, she is the template upon which all later characters in her role are based. Yes, Aeris too. But while we're on this thread, they say there's no such thing as a new story, only a new way of telling it. If Rosa is as unoriginal as you claim, so is any character you've ever liked.

Third paragraph is a cover.

I already know any attempt to get you to look deeper into Rosa is doomed to fail, much as I wish I could naively believe otherwise. You busted right out the gate with how much you think Rosa sucks, and I know psychology. The more you repeat something, the more strongly you hold on to it, the truer it is. You aren't coming into this with an open mind. You're coming into it certain that Rosa is a terrible character, and you'll be seeking every way you can to prove that remains the case. This is not an accusation that you knowingly don't want to see more to her, it's me telling you that when you've already made up your mind on an issue, you go through confirmation bias, even subconsciously. And with this character, it's easy to twist everything from a strength into a weakness. I saw one person do it superbly to the point where she sounded more villainous than Golbez.

I don't see how "I'm sick of..." is a statement of knowing it's viewpoint, but that seems like a non-issue to me beyond that it shows you already made up your mind about her, which blinds you to the possibility that you might not have a full picture of who Rosa is and what she's like. "Truth" is subjective in most cases, sure, but you can't strive to the closest thing you can get to an objective perspective if you already "know" with this much certainty that you're right.

First sentence fails to give any reason, instead hinging on your beliefs, so will be disregarded. There is nothing more to Rosa than her "love her friends, hate the bad guy" "personality" which is extremely thin no matter which way you slice it.

I admit Rosa did help Cecil through his times of hardness as a DK, and was probably the only one who could have done it. That doesn't give any reason why anyone should like her more. By that logic, everyone should love Palom and Porom because they helped Cecil gain the trust of Mysidia to travel back to Baron and they were the only ones who could have done it.

After that though, she becomes much less important. Rydia probably would have overcome her fears even if Rosa had not been there. It probably would have been better for everyone had Rosa not gone after Cecil in the desert, as her stupidity ended up forcing Cecil and friends to abandon their quest to protect the world from Baron for quite some time while they trecked through three dungeons and two boss battles, just to heal her(imagine if some soldier's wife ran out in the middle of a battlefield in Iraq because she missed him, then got shot, and they had to postpone the war so she could get proper medical treatment.). There's no reason why Golbez wouldn't have killed the rest of the party after kidnapping Rosa, if that's what he wanted to do. Rosa in actuality only gave Golbez time to think that it would be better to leave Cecil and co. alive to get the rest of the crystals for him.

Your "she is the first of the stereotype to have healing magic" argument is just stupid.The reason I brought that up was because you said people hated Rosa for being a stereotype. You argued that she wasn't, but was rather a starter of the stereotype. I argued that she was the first of her kind in an FF game, but was still a stereotype, which is a valid reason for disliking a character. You then proceeded to argue that if it hadn't been done in an FF game specifically, then it was somehow new and fresh and not a stereotype. Fact is, she's a stereotype. No stereotype is instantly bad, but what if (get ready to wrap your mind around this) there were certain stereotypes... that not everybody liked!! I for one know more than most people that there are no new ideas out there, but that's not to say all ideas are good ideas.

Advice: don't ever get into suicide hotline as a career. I can see you now. "Well, you're already saying you're gonna kill yourself, so nothing I say or do will change your mind. Thanks for calling Suicide Hotline!" One thing that's become blatantly obvious is that you yourself have a vehemently closed mind, and refuse to take any criticism towards Rosa. Heaven forbid you acknowledge that there are people who don't like her. All my arguments are stating how I dislike her, not why everyone else should dislike her.

I also love who you have to convince yourself that anyone who disagrees with you is, instead of holding a valid opinion, just tricking themselves. Suddenly if I'm not in love with a character who's as deep as the shallow end of a thimble, I'm blinding myself to the truth. Nice.

I can't help but compare you to FFVII fanboys who would kill someone and their dog for making fun of Cloud, or (dare I say it?) a religious folk.

[Roto13]

You kids are so cute when you act like you should be able to change each other's minds, and if you can't, it's obviously because the other guy isn't paying attention.

[arcanedude34]

You might be replying to this as I type this, but I felt like I should add on.

You have to understand that for the past year, I've seen a lot of people like you say they were open to hearing me out, or claim they'll keep an open mind. Then when it came down to it, they really didn't want to know. They just wanted to see what I had to say so they could find loopholes in the argument to confirm for themselves that how they saw things was accurate.

After a year, I'm tired of childish games. I'm tired of giving the benefit of the doubt, or thinking the best will come out of something when it never does. I don't want to waste my time hoping for the best with someone who pretends to want to hear me out, but really only wants to go through a drawn-out process with an end goal of feeling validated in their initial conclusions. I don't want to waste my time on such people, and would much rather skip to the end so I can do more productive things with my time.

Self-fulfilling prophecy is more than possible with this attitude, but in my experience thus far, the chances of me turning away someone who's genuinely interested are slim to nil.

If you're tired of this, then why even post those long-winded responses to people who bash her? I'm not here to have an argument, but rather a debate. If you want, I'd be willing to end it right now, agreeing to disagree, no hard feelings.

[*PaladinCecil*]

You kids are so cute when you act like you should be able to change each other's minds, and if you can't, it's obviously because the other guy isn't paying attention.

I like you. Nothing else, that felt necessary.

First sentence fails to give any reason, instead hinging on your beliefs, so will be disregarded. There is nothing more to Rosa than her "love her friends, hate the bad guy" "personality" which is extremely thin no matter which way you slice it.

Nice and convenient way to write it off. Predictable. As always. I don't blame you though, since I did insult you by calling you a liar. What I'd say you should find more interesting here is that instead of demanding me to prove it, you illogically said my calling you a liar means all my points are wrong.

I want to read through the rest of your post and respond to your every point and all but... I don't care. I know you're giving it a good old try, but I'm tired of dealing with people like you. If you really wanted to know, you would've taken the high road, refrained from insults, and made me feel like a jerk for jumping to such immediate conclusions about you. To put it another way, you would have attempted to bring me down to civility so we COULD have an open debate.

You're going to follow this up with a post about how I must be wrong if I don't argue with you more. And I'm not going to care.

Well, that's not entirely true. You would've if hadn't said that. Now I don't know what you'll do.

I wish you the best in life. And I'm genuine in saying that.

[*PaladinCecil*]

Sorry for double-posting, but I wanted to add: thanks, everyone, for defending me in my stead while I wasn't here.

[Tamagon]

These are more nerdier than Zelda timeline debates

And that is saying a lot

[Elpizo]

Know what I think pisses PalCec off so much about this Arcane fellow? Not only does he hate Rosa, he rubs it in PalCec face as much as possible, just so he can spite him. Seriously, PalCec may be overdoing it at times with his Rosa love, but the Rosa haters are no better off, and certainly not Arcane here. Every one of his posts has the same sentence again and again "she's bland, boring, sucks blablabla". Granted, happens to Paladin at times too.

Just forget about it PalCec, it's a lost battle. Let the dreamers in their small world where Aeris began it all and Rosa and earlier are copies of her. Let the poor in their believes that IV was the first to have a developed storyline. They will always just brush of any valid arguement you make with the 'personal opinion' and stuff thing.

Personally, I'm against personal opinion in some cases. But what can you do about it...

[Roogle]

Actually, anyone who comes to a video game forum daily needs a life, quite frankly.

It is not your place to make judgments about everyone who visits this forum on a daily or recurring basis.

On the topic at hand, I think that the limitations of the storyline in its current form denies Rosa the proper screen time or development that she could have had judging from her character. The Nintendo DS version lets you see her thoughts in reacting to certain events showing, clearly, that she has a distinct opinion from Cecil and is aware of the situation around her.

[*PaladinCecil*]

Know what I think pisses PalCec off so much about this Arcane fellow? Not only does he hate Rosa, he rubs it in PalCec face as much as possible, just so he can spite him. Seriously, PalCec may be overdoing it at times with his Rosa love, but the Rosa haters are no better off, and certainly not Arcane here. Every one of his posts has the same sentence again and again "she's bland, boring, sucks blablabla". Granted, happens to Paladin at times too.

Just forget about it PalCec, it's a lost battle. Let the dreamers in their small world where Aeris began it all and Rosa and earlier are copies of her. Let the poor in their believes that IV was the first to have a developed storyline. They will always just brush of any valid arguement you make with the 'personal opinion' and stuff thing.

Personally, I'm against personal opinion in some cases. But what can you do about it...

You're right, that's why I stopped arguing with him. I've started finding ways to save my time with people like him, and he proved vividly that he just wants to flaunt how much he hates a perfectly fine character but keep his conscience (though maybe that's too strong of a word) clean by pretending he has an open mind.

[arcanedude34]

Actually, anyone who comes to a video game forum daily needs a life, quite frankly.

It is not your place to make judgments about everyone who visits this forum on a daily or recurring basis.

It is. I am one of those people.

And since when did FFVII fanboys become FFIV fanboys? Cuz you guys are being just as pigheaded as those FFVII fanboys everyone hates.

If you actually bothered to read through the thread, you'll find that I never claimed my beliefs to be any more than beliefs, and I am entitled to them. And don't go off about "Oh you're just saying this to fool yourself into thinking you won" because not only did I not start this argument, I was actually the one who first offered to end it. I only made a joking statement about PaladinCecil, which, when confronted, I defended myself (which would be a good enough excuse for PaladinCecil, because you AGREE with his opinions, but nt for me, because I'm the one who's wrong here)

Not only were there no good points that I didn't address, you wrote off all of my points without even considering them. Even in the context of a debate with both sides adamant int their beliefs, that's just stupid.

I'm not dreaming in a world where Aeris started it all. I'm not stupid. I can't believe that because I don't like Rosa, suddenly I'm a moron and am tricking myself into thinking she's terrible. Believe it or not, I actually thought about this in bed the other night. I wondered if I was being too pigheaded, and tried to redeem Rosa to myself, but I literally couldn't think of anything I liked about her. Of course you wont believe me, because as you read this, I'm sure you're thinking "He's just saying that, he doesn't mean it" or something similar.

I come to these forums to have debates about Final Fantasy because I love it (Final Fantasy, not debating) but when someone won't acknowledge ANY of your points at all, and instead INSULTS you when you don't share their beliefs, then you're no better than FFVII fanboys who think the first VI FFs were practice for VII.

[Goldenboko]

Actually, anyone who comes to a video game forum daily needs a life, quite frankly.

It is not your place to make judgments about everyone who visits this forum on a daily or recurring basis.

It is. I am one of those people.

So? I'm an Italian person, I can't speak for all Italian people.

[arcanedude34]

It's a little different, I'm not speaking for everyone here, I'm making a statement about everyone here (maybe not everyone). Making a statement that a bunch of nerds like us isn't the same things as speaking for an entire country.