I agree with you. I think it's maybe because the last heroine we were introduced to in the main FF series was superficially the soft, yielding lady we might "expect", and previous FF "heroines" have been in perhaps the same mold - let the man sort it out. (Yuna and Garnet have a few redeeming features; Rinoa, to my mind, does not.) Ashe is more in the mold of Celes or Rydia: she doesn't have time for conventions because there are important things to do. And I agree that it's unfair to judge Ashe so harshly because she's female, but to me, it's so very refreshing to see a strong female main character again after so long, that it makes me doubly angry when people discount her abilities because she's being "a bitch" or "PMSing." (I will point out here that Ashe PMSing is probably something no one in their right mind is going to intrude on, but anyway
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Vent away! You're making a lot of excellent points. (And I'm in agreement with you about Rinoa. She's the main reason why I couldn't finish FFVIII. Just...yeesh.)
And you make a good point that Ashe is very much a product of her environment, and as the leader of the Resistance and the heir to her throne, she really can't afford to be laid back if she's going to have any chance of regaining her country. She has to be proactive. That's something I think a lot of people miss.
(And I just got to Celes in FFVI. She's damn cool. This is promising.)
I think a lot of my expectations for heroines in Final Fantasy games were shaped by my first real exposure to the series in FFVI, so I always end up liking the "ice bitch" characters. I liked Beatrix in FF9, Lulu in FFX, Paine in FFX-2, and of course I'm all about Ashe in FF12. The so-called "nice girls," like Aeris, Rinoa, Penelo, or Yuna, set my teeth on edge (and the perky ones like Rikku make me want to destroy things, but that's a whole other thing.) I like strong women, and either roguish men or doomed honourable knights
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Oh, I love Lulu and Paine. Have yet to play through FFIX, sadly. (I do like some of the "nice girl" types -- I'm very fond of Aeris and Penelo, although I'd argue that those two have a little bit more spark to them -- but the perky types do set my teeth on edge.)
I really liked that Ashe wasn't the white mage romantic heroine so common to the fantasy genre in general. While they can be well-done, it's so nice to see a break from convention. The lack of overt romance also really made me happy; it fit in well with FFXII's more subtle ways of showing growth and character development. Plus, the "world is saved by the power of their twoo wuv" device gets OLD.
I love FFIX mostly because it "feels" like the older games (IV and VI particularly) despite having prettier graphics. I think my major problem with VII and VIII was that they didn't feel like they had any life to them. The characters were cutouts moving woodenly through their parts, and I had no investment in them or their trials.
Because dude, in any given party? I am the perky one. ^^
Myself, I never really connect with Lulu and Paine, because they seem...predictable? I liked them fine, but eventually "yes, yes, you hate everything and are sarcastic" bores me. Much like I imagine "yes, you're very perky, aren't you?" bores other people. Which is why I like Ashe, among many other reasons -- she isn't either, and that's refreshing. Actually that's sort of why I like XII a lot all over -- none of the characters really feel like an archetype to me. They have elements of one or another, but more than anything they are themselves.
Heh. In real life, I'm the grumpy sarcastic one, so I can identify a little bit better with those characters, I think.
And very good point about XII. Hell, I went in there thinking "oh christ a bunny girl" and went out thinking "damn, Fran kicks about twelve hundred different kinds of ass." The characters really are so much more than what they appear to be.
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And you make a good point that Ashe is very much a product of her environment, and as the leader of the Resistance and the heir to her throne, she really can't afford to be laid back if she's going to have any chance of regaining her country. She has to be proactive. That's something I think a lot of people miss.
(And I just got to Celes in FFVI. She's damn cool. This is promising.)
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I really liked that Ashe wasn't the white mage romantic heroine so common to the fantasy genre in general. While they can be well-done, it's so nice to see a break from convention. The lack of overt romance also really made me happy; it fit in well with FFXII's more subtle ways of showing growth and character development. Plus, the "world is saved by the power of their twoo wuv" device gets OLD.
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Because dude, in any given party? I am the perky one. ^^
Myself, I never really connect with Lulu and Paine, because they seem...predictable? I liked them fine, but eventually "yes, yes, you hate everything and are sarcastic" bores me. Much like I imagine "yes, you're very perky, aren't you?" bores other people.
Which is why I like Ashe, among many other reasons -- she isn't either, and that's refreshing. Actually that's sort of why I like XII a lot all over -- none of the characters really feel like an archetype to me. They have elements of one or another, but more than anything they are themselves.
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Heh. In real life, I'm the grumpy sarcastic one, so I can identify a little bit better with those characters, I think.
And very good point about XII. Hell, I went in there thinking "oh christ a bunny girl" and went out thinking "damn, Fran kicks about twelve hundred different kinds of ass." The characters really are so much more than what they appear to be.
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