Hope isn't Sazh's son, as mentioned before.

Actually, the idea of him running away from battles - whilst it has the potential to be REALLY ANNOYING until you get his confidence up - is actually quite accurate. More accurate than 14-year-olds just diving into battles when they've never fought in their life. I mean, he's just a kid and of course he's going to be scared.

Hopefully you can just fight a load of weak monsters and boost the confidence that way. I can imagine it would be VERY BAD to enter a boss fight and have him run away in fear ;