my top fifteen women of final fantasy (5-2)

[thenicochan]

We're down the wire, for this list and FFXV's release itself. My hype is building, and I hope yours is too! If not then, er, hopefully you enjoy this list! As always, comments and discussion about these incredible ladies is more than welcome.

Quick note: At this point the list got very difficult to organize. Technically any of these women could

Comments

[thaao]

Nice~ I don't have as much to say about this one because 3/4 of these are some of my least favorites (and by that I am not saying I dislike them, of course -- I love all of these characters, just my ranking would be a different order and so I don't think as much about them).

I have super mixed feelings about Tifa and I've only played through FF7 once all the way through. And that playthrough, I was annoyed by Tifa because I immediately judged her as a character created solely for sex appeal and so I kind of ignored her a lot. Then after finishing, in hindsight, I was like "Why did I hate her so much???" but I spent so much time clouded with this judgment that I didn't get to appreciate her. Over time I've really come to like her a lot but I've not really got to appreciate her in context. So I guess by "mixed feelings" I mean I should appreciate her more but I need to play FF7 again and pay more attention.

I totally get why you love Fang but I had a hard time getting into her and Vanille. I think I was just so attached to other characters by the time she came around and became more prominent that I didn't have space left in my tiny frozen heart for her. Being said though I still really liked her and indeed she is hot.

Which is a thing that... worries me a lot? I am not afraid to say "I love this character because of the way they are written and how deep and complex they are and damn they're super hot" but... only if it refers to cis male characters? I think I'm afraid of, like you said, discrediting my appreciation for the character by commenting on their appearance, but only if she's a woman. I don't know why I feel this way. I mean, I have many theories. Part of it is that mentioning women's appearance immediately seems to lead to the conclusion that you're objectifying them. Add into that the fact that most of their appearance is designed for the sake of being objectified... I think it makes me uncomfortable because I'm wondering myself if I'm just objectifying or appreciating? And on top of that, there's the whole thing with the biphobia etc. and the fact that most people I know actively dislike when I talk about attractive people that aren't cis men so... that's probably part of it. But I don't know the whole reason why I'm uncomfortable saying it.

ANYWWAY, Fang is hot though the most attractive gals in the series for me are probably Rinoa and Dagger. But I just really, really love that kurogami look I think.

You seem to really like the FF13 cast a lot! We've probably talked about it before lol?? But what do you think of the other three? Personally I love all 6 player characters from that game. It had a really great cast. It's hard to choose a favorite character. Even when I say I don't like Vanille or Fang it's just because I love everyone so much. Snow is probably also in the bottom three, but between Lightning, Hope, and Sazh, I have a really hard time choosing a ranking. FF13's story and characters is really underrated. (As is the game itself in general honestly??)

And yeah for Rinoa. I definitely get what you mean. I actually love her a lot, too, for the same reasons. She's a really great character. For a while I even considered her my #1 fav character in the whole series. I was really shocked to find out a lot of people hate her? I was like "But... Don't you SEEEEEEEE all this?? Did we play the same game?" XD

As for her weapon I love it even though it's so weird. It's like a chakram wrist launcher thing. It seems like something that should be a toy with a cheap shonen anime tie-in alongside stuff like Bakugan and Beyblade. "Have you MASTERED all the MYTHICAL BEASTS of the WRISTRAM???" *kids firing it out and summoning Angelo and stuff in the cartoon... real toy is a cheap plastic thing that plops a little paper circle onto the ground that immediately tears on first use*

[thenicochan]

I had similar feelings about Tifa, though less severe, when I first went through FF7. I liked her, but not as much as I do now. I would definitely recommend replaying the game and giving Tifa another look. After seeing her in Advent Children I became a little more intrigued, and when I replayed VII in preparation for the release of XIII she rose up the ranks as one of my absolute favorites. Her costume is kind of head-desk worthy (though I dig her hair and earrings), though I’ve read plenty of opinion pieces that justified/headcanoned her outfit into meaning something more than just sex appeal, and her “breasts out towards the camera” win pose is a bit much, but I don’t think those few things should be enough to completely change my judgment.

I’m right there with you in terms of objectifying female characters as opposed to male ones. It’s a tricky double standard, because we (as white American biological dudes) don’t want to be labeled sexist, or feel our opinions on characters are invalidated simply because we find a character attractive or not. I think overall, as long as the “hotness” of said character isn’t the sole reason you like them (or if it is, by being honest about it) it’s just about knowing when/where and with who such observations would have merit.

I think both Rinoa and Dagger are great looking, though I think I’m more into the “mature big sis” type myself. Think Quistis or Lulu. But let’s be real-other than those that are too young (Eiko) or deliberately designed to be ugly (Brahne) nearly every female character in the series is stupid hot/cute/beautiful.

Funny what said about Fang and Vanille, because I actually feel like the female members of XIII’s cast are exemplary and blow the men out of the water. It’s like an inverse of XII for me, where the number of men I absolutely adored beyond belief (Balthier, Basch, Gabranth, Larsa, Vossler, etc) outnumbered the women (Ashe and Fran, though to be fair there’s only like two other named women of importance). I enjoyed Light from the beginning, loved Sazh a lot, and was lukewarm about Hope and Snow. I came to enjoy all the characters, but I think if I made a “top ten” list of characters from XIII the top four would be female, then Sazh, then probably another female.

Snow is fine, and I never disliked him, but he never really did it for me either. He was the hottest male character, but that was pretty much it. Come Lightning Returns, where I think he was done incredibly well, and his design is my absolute favorite of any other he’s had, and I really dig him, but Light/Fang/Vanille/Serah still edge him out by a large margin. I do like Hope a lot (his haters are numerous and ridiculous IMO) so it’s not that I think he’s a bad character insomuch that his competition is really fierce.

I think part of my feeling is thanks to the narrative. While women are always important in any given FF story, this was the first one where it felt like the women were more important since VI. By the time Fang joins the group most of Sazh and Hope’s storyline have been more-or-less wrapped up, and it’s the girls who really push the narrative. Barthandelus basically acts like the guys aren’t even there in the finale, with Vanille and Fang taking center stage all throughout the ending. I thought that was really cool.

The story and party members in both XIII and its sequels are all excellent, though I think aside from Caius and Yuel from XIII-2, a lot of the incidental characters are…disappointing. FF is famous for having awesome NPCs, but very few of the side characters in the trilogy are particularly well developed. They are either shafted extremely early on (Team NORA) or completely misused and underutilized (Jihl. My god, Jihl so much. So much more could’ve been done with her.) But yeah, overall I think XIII is pretty great. It’s not the best game in the series and has its fair share of problems, but I don’t agree with the rage thrown against it. It is in no way bad, and I agree it is underrated as a whole.

[thenicochan]

I think you hit the nail on the head in regards to the Blaster Edge! I could totally see it as something like that in real life. When Rinoa gets Seifer to train her in self-defense before the game I could see her pulling the weapon out of nowhere and Seifer just staring at it and thinking like “WTF WTF WTF IS THAT” but Rinoa’s all like “I’m readdddyyyyy boyyffriieenndd <3” and so he just goes with it but really has no idea how to give her tactics for using it. Maybe he gets Fujin involved, since it looks vaguely similar to her weapon.