What makes a good character?

[Levian]

Humour usually does the trick!

[VeloZer0]

How is Squall troubled? IMO until he meets Rinoa he has his together more than most FF characters. This is more a case of you wanting to project a typical anime personality on him.

[Shaibana]

its all a mather of taste at the end...
Some like serious characters, and some prefer the goofy ones

[VeloZer0]

Despite taste I think there is still a matter of good and poor writing. For instance I dislike the style of all the FF9 characters, but despite my low initial impression of all of them I grew to appreciate them.

[Shaibana]

Ofcourse its a mather of good and poor writing, but im just saying: a character can be writen sooooooooo good, but (for instant) if u dont like his/her silly character it can ruin the whole thing

[Jiro]

I disagree, I feel that even having a good justification does not change the likability of a character.

Whether or not you like them doesn't really affect whether they're a good character or not. "Good" is a relatively objective term, whereas "likeable" is going to be subjective. The only time likeable seems objective is when the masses like it

[Wolf Kanno]

^Except the term good itself is subjective as well since the value of what is considered good is based on the culture, and times. A loner characters like Squall would mistify a tribal society who exists by team work alone. As this thread has shown, considering many people can't agree on the qualifications for what constitutes as good writing, I would say we're still in the realm of subjectivity.

[Shaibana]

Ms. smarty pants with her expensive words.. xD

[Jiro]

WK I concede that point. :P