I'm responding without real reference to who suggested who, because I'm scanning the thread and writing as I do it.

A quote from Rosa that guarantees she did not trail them and get caught up in Titan.

Rosa: They told me you'd died in the earthquake at Mist. But...I knew it couldn't be true.

The quote was taken from here: GameFAQs: Final Fantasy IV (DS) Game Script by RevenantThings

I used to think that Rosa arrived in Kaipo before Cecil, but I don't know where the impression came from. You don't get to talk to anyone in Kaipo until you wake up the next morning. I found no dialogue from NPCs saying she was already there before you, which leaves it open that she arrived anywhere between what happened at Mist and shortly before Cecil and Rydia woke up in the Inn.

We've been discussing Rosa's possible paths over at GameFAQs for a bit now. The discussion makes me happy, because it acknowledges that Rosa getting there is an important element of the story too that you don't see straight out. Currently, it's at either Rosa took a small boat/raft along the eastern shore (this is going under the idea that the airships were naval ships until recently) and walked once getting to shore, or she took a mountain pass not shown (of course, utilizing a chocobo until she got to the pass). It's also been thrown around a bit that she maybe stowed away on an airship, but other surrounding information seems to me like that's entirely unlikely.


Wolf_Kanno makes a good point about Rosa compared to other leads. The first time you need to help her, it happens unexpectedly, and it's something completely unavoidable; looking down on Rosa for getting Desert Fever is like looking down on someone for getting pneumonia. And in Fabul, it's not like Rosa had any options. Her abduction is as much the fault of Kain (Golbez can see she has some power over him because Kain hesitates to kill Cecil) and Cecil (he calls her name, showing that he cares about her) as it is her own. Actually, I'm trying to think of how any of that scene is Rosa's "fault" but I can't... and I'm dead serious, please illustrate how it is if you can. She DID need to be there, otherwise Cecil would be a carcass on the end of Kain's spear.


Rosa didn't start the general cliche in literature. She started it in the Final Fantasy series. She was the first character to break ground on that now all too common "white mage stereotype," something many people who started later in the series do not grasp for a mix of reasons. The most obvious is that it's so common they assume it's always been there. The second, perhaps less obvious one is that most people started with Aeris, and therefore consciously or subconsciously see her as the person who started it all, and from there it's really a matter of awareness. If they don't realize it, they're just trying to hold EVERY character to Aeris standards; if they DO realize it, and they're a hardcore Aeris fan, it could be a little less benign than that (meaning they could be against her because her being there before Aeris makes Aeris a little less special than they thought).

I don't use this as a serious argument, but one amusing tidbit of note: when you're at the Golden Saucer and Cloud and Aeris (I forget if it can be any girl, I always remember it with Aeris) have to perform as the leads in the play, the girl is named Rosa. This certainly raises a lot of questions, doesn't it?

GameFAQs: Final Fantasy VII (PS) Game Script by Asch The Hated

Narration: Long, long ago... An evil shadow appeared over the peaceful kingdom of Galdia... Princess Rosa was just kidnapped by the Evil Dragon King, Valvados. What will become of her? Just then, the legendary hero, Alfred appears!!


As far as Rosa taking off on her own, Cid was busy. The King sent troops out with explicit orders to off Rydia and kill Cecil if he raises resistance. We have no clue what happened with Kain, though we can be pretty sure that he wasn't really one of the people who either would or could go look for him. The Red Wings... I have no clue what the heck they were up to, I guess just sitting around? By all appearances, Rosa's the only one who cared enough to look for Cecil not to kill him.

Rosa getting sick does put a damper on the progress to Fabul, and her being a bargaining chip for Golbez is a negative event for her. And maybe there would've been a better way for her to reach Cecil, maybe she could've found a way to get Kain to come with her if she were in Baron for a little longer.

I think I'm getting too tired, but what I'm trying to say is that there are negatives to the events surrounding Rosa, but that's not ALL there is to Rosa and they're DEFINITELY not as bad as people always make them sound. If she's the worst example of a female lead, then let's look at Cecil.

He steals from the Mysidians and torches a village (under the king's orders, which excuses his actions, but still). He fails to reach Damcyan before an attack and fails to defend the crystal, Rosa and even himself in Fabul. Several people "die" in the course of the game so he can continue the journey (the twins, Cid, Yang, Tellah...). When he tries to keep the crystals in the Dwarven Castle and the Sealed Cave safe, he just lets them fall into enemy clutches. He also fails to steal them back. Finally, he and the rest of the party would have died trying to fight Zeromus if not for the prayers of everyone from the Blue Planet. There are enough failures for him to fill a paragraph.


In case it's not obvious, I don't think that Cecil sucks as a character, and this isn't REALLY an ultimatum, an "if Rosa sucks then Cecil sucks too." The point I'm trying to get across here is that perspective is important. If you're only looking for the bad, all you're going to see is the bad. If you look only at the above, Cecil's a complete failure without help, and even then he usually doesn't accomplish his goals. If you look at the good too, how he redeemed Baron from the clutches of a fake king or how he fought the darkness inside him and became a better person for it, you can see he's NOT a failure. The same can be said of Rosa.