Edit: Wayyy too long. Deleted some paragraphs, TL;DR at the bottom >.<
Not being a regular here, but being a lifelong FF fan and a literature major, I'll try to answer what I personally saw in her.
Claire, or rather Lightning is a character that acts through instinct. XIII's story starts off with Claire already suffering from continued shock; she has become aware of how cruel the 'safe haven' of Cocoon is since her parents died and all she has left is her little sister, she never has a lot of personal time for her sister because she went military to support the two of them on her own. She recently met 'a moron' by the name Snow Villiers, who is mobilizing a group that is surely going to cause trouble for her job. And then said little sister drops the double bomb of a) Marrying said moron, and b) Being a l'cie = being purged. The base personality Claire, is about to lose Serah, ergo she's going to lose everything she's been working for at this point.
Claire is too weak to deal with this and she knows it. So she created the Lightning personality to deal with it.Claire is scared of losing her little sister, Lightning doesn't have a plan to save Serah, but is perfectly willing to slice fal'Cie, shoot Sanctum, and punch people in the face in order to save Serah and protect what's left of Claire.
Lightning is detached and Claire is paralyzed with fear is what I'm saying. Lightning can act while Claire can feel.
Hence, Lightning has three main objectives.
1) Protect Claire from suffering as much as possible.
2) Protect Serah so Claire can be at peace
3) Should she fail to protect Serah, move on so Claire can find peace.
Claire doesn't want to think, thus Lightning isn't especially good at planning, she's good at taking decisive action. Lightning train of though goes to Goal 1) Protect Claire, by fulfilling goal 2) Protect Serah.
But once she arrives to Serah's side all she can do is watch her turn into crystal, as far as she knows she's effectively gone from her life right then and there. So her priorities switch to 1) Protect Claire, by fulfilling goal 3) Move on so Claire can find peace. If she can't save Claire's sister, maybe she can at least avenge her, thus giving Claire a small measure of justice, an even smaller measure of peace.
But she fails and is made into a l'Cie, then Lightning and Snow come upon the crystalized Serah in Lake Bresha. Snow, as the figure that feels optimism during the bleakest times, sees the crsytalized Serah and swears to turn her back.
Lightning sees her sister's corpse.
I want you to picture Claire crying over Serah's body because that's a legitimate human reaction. It doesn't happen in XIII because Lightning is there to 1) Protect Claire, through accomplishing 3) moving on so Claire can have peace. Snow works on belief, Lightning works on instinct. Snow clings to the idea that they can still save Serah, and Lightning desperately wants to move on yesterday. She beats the crap out of Snow and only stops punching when she decides it's a waste of effort and maybe he's behaving the way she should have, so to 1) protect Claire, she'll 3) move on, and just leave both of them behind. Lightning is a character that keeps acting decisively through anything; fear, shame, guilt. It's only when presented with factual evidence of l'Cie awakening from a crystal sleep that those very same goals make the Lightning persona a solution to Claire's problems.
TL;DR: Sometimes you have to act in ways you couldn't have imagined (maybe act like a "#$%) to get stuff done. To protect your loved ones if the world around you is especially cruel. Sometimes you have to stop caring about the important to get the essential done, and 'Lightning' as a personality shield for Claire, accomplishes this brilliantly. No matter what Deity, immortal, or god gets in her way, Lightning displays the guts to risk every important thing over and over again, to protect the real Claire's happiness, Serah. In the end results in saving her little sister and provide some real peace. Whether it takes either a full game or a full *trilogy*, in the end, and what keeps bringing fans back, is that she actually succeeds and it's extremely satisfying to see.
So why do people other than me like Lightning? I'm going to take a small guess; We can all admire someone who doesn't show the overwhelming fear she feels and consistently act to defend her own ideals. Maybe maybe she's too good at hiding how scared out of her mind she was during most of her ordeal, but we can all easily tell she got stuff done. By the end of FFXIII, Lightning had managed to get help from her friends (Especially Snow) and found the hope to save Serah, therefore making Claire happy. By the end of the trilogy, Claire has lost hope and clings to the feeling of guilt, that's all sorts of screwed up and mentally unhealthy, yet it pushes her to accomplish wonders; To free humanity from Bhunivelze and create a new world where Claire doesn't need Lightning anymore.
She's like the Batman of Final Fantasy; Childish, but with a powerful, absolutely obsessive persona always guarding herself, dealing with loss in the most unhealthy way possible, pushing herself until she can cope, and if she feels she fails at any point, rather than stop, her guilt pushes her to try harder. Even if she feels like crap. Especially if she feels like crap.
Oh boy, I just compared Lightning to Batman...before anybody thinks me a fanboy or anything, Edgar Figaro, Squall, Laguna, Auron, Cecil, Edward the bard, Snow, Fang, Noel Kreiss, Thancred Waters and Hien are characters that rank higher than Lightning in my personal favorites list. I just think the girl isn't a bad character and deserves fair analysis before being dismissed.
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