Artistic Age

[YTDN]

Basically, which characters in any Final Fantasy game had you thinking that their official ages were highly innacurate, and what did you think their actual ages were.

For me:
Balthier (FFXII): Officially 22, to me seemed more late twenties, 27/28, mostly because of his voice, face and general attitude.
Reddas (FFXII): Officially 33 (!), I'd place him much, much older (forties at least).
Larsa (FFXII) (Noticing a pattern here?) : Officially twelve, I'd peg him at a few years older, maybe 14/15?
Vanille (FFXIII): Officially 19, I assumed her to be about 15/16 from her childish attitude.
Squall and Quistis (FFVIII): Officially in their late teens, I'd put them at early twenties.

That's all for now. What about everyone else?

[Chris]

I always imagined Quistis to be in her late '20s to early '30s.

Garnet looks twelve, and Zidane looks 11, at most. =P

[LunarWeaver]

I don't like Quistis being a teenager. I know in RPGs anything beyond 17 is old, or something, but she was an instructor at a school and such. She was a 35-year-old stuck in a teenager's body, for the sake of the whole orphanage plot ...thing they were doing.

Of course, that whole Squall infatuation would have been extra-predator if she were older, I guess, but that plot thread was dropped after 5 minutes anyway.

[Clo]

Balthier was 22?!

VIII seemed to have the weirdest ages. None of the characters really acted like teenagers, except Selphie, and she was just the typical hyper character.

Also, Vivi was very existential for a 9 year old.

[VeloZer0]

To be fair, Vivi wasn't human so ages wouldn't necessarily correlate.

[blackmage_nuke]

When they said Nanaki was 19 or whatever I thought that was a good plot twist as I expected him to be 50 or something and thought he was a very wise and insightful teenager. But once they explained (or once i correctly figured out they meant) it was 19 in reverse dog years and he had actually lived for 50 or so years I was much less impressed.

[YTDN]

Balthier was 22?!

Yup. That makes him about 15 years younger than Basch, 6 years younger than Vayne and only five years older than Vaan, despite the fact he acts, looks and sounds much older. Personally, I think they should have made him older, if only to have less ridiculously youthful people in the cast.

[silentenigma]

Nice thread, i was just thinking about this.

I agree that just about everyone in VIII should be older...
Tidus/Yuna - officially 17, seemed more like 19 or so to me.
Auron - officially 35, should be more like 45 in my opinion.

[Persephone Stephanie]

The whole FFXII cast confuse me with their ages, with the exception of Vaan and Penelo who look realistically 17, and Basch who does look to be in his middle to late 30s.

I agree about Balthier. I thought he was in his late 20s; about the same age as Vayne. I thought Ashe was about 21/22, although the booklet claims she is 19. That means she was married at 17! Perhaps that's not too young in Ivalice but she certainly didn't look 17 in the opening video. Larsa is very precocious and so he seems a few years older than 12 - I'd place him at 14.

When I play XII I can't think of the characters as being their official ages, since they just don't gel with the way they look/act.

[Laddy]

I thought Sazh looked more like...mid 30's, but he's 40. Not extreme, but older than I thought.

[Depression Moon]

Yes Quistis should have been older, maybe Irvine too. Auron definitely looks older than 35.

[Ezme]

I do sometimes think the ages are just arbitrary in the most part and just to put in the ultimania! lol

Auron and Quistis' ages are definitely wrong in my opinion! And the whole of XII's cast!

[Mercen-X]

I really don't pay attention to the described ages of any of the characters within the Final Fantasy universe. I just base it upon the dialogue and actions they take.

Ever taken that Real Age test tells you you're either 2.5 years older or 4 years younger and such nonsense based on how you answer its questions?

Y: I'd say you've something to learn about how age affects one's looks and personality. It doesn't necessarily take very long to look older (some as old as 27 may look 10 years older), yet that's no guarantee that someone in their late 50's won't be mistaken for a 27-year-old and no, it's not due to genetic tampering as in the case of Vincent Valentine but more factoring the possibility that this person has taken precise care of their body over the years. Most of us will likely develop into coughing old prunes or overweight pock-mounds due to a diet of soda and greasy or salty foods laden with MSG and HFCS.

Voices are tougher to place. We can physically control what we sound like and through observation mimic people who are either young and naive or aged and enlightened. You could obviously say that Sasuke from Naruto sounds a lot older (two reasons for this being that his voice actor is older and male and that the sense of Sasuke being more corrupted is better expressed by sounding older). The children of Naruto could have all been voiced by a single voice actor specializing in kids' voices and simply tried to express corruption and enlightenment into their vocal tone or vocabulary, but it would have been harder for the audience to take characters like Sasuke and Shino for anything other than a couple of kids.

I'll admit I was surprised to learn Balthier is 22.
lol Nanaki. I like the fact they introduced a dog-guardian-like character that would live beyond all of the stories of Final Fantasy VII. Since he was not human, I never bothered to associate him with an age. It becomes pretty difficult to be surprised when you have no expectations.
I'm not sure if the plot of VIII makes a difference to anybody, but Squall and the others typically passed out and viewed past events in the lives of Laguna and (sometimes) Kiros and Ward. We're introduced to this element when the characters are in their late teens but I believe they've been experiencing these flashbacks even as children which would cause at least a few of them to behave more like somber adults than your typical post-adolescents.

[VeloZer0]

22 seems even more ridiculous when you consider he had time to become a judge, quit, and become a established sky pirate.

[Slothy]

22 seems even more ridiculous when you consider he had time to become a judge, quit, and become a established sky pirate.

Indeed, though if we assume that he could join the military fairly young, say in his mid-teens which wouldn't be terribly unheard of, his fathers influence could have lead to him being judge at a fairly young age, maybe as early as 17. If he didn't remain a judge for long then that'd leave time for him to become a reasonably successful sky pirate. I do agree just the same though that making him at least 25 instead would make it a bit easier to swallow for North American and European gamers.

As it is though, I don't really pay attention to characters ages when I'm playing unless they're explicitly stated in the game, so I just assumed he was in his late 20's at least.