FFXII Essay: Penelo: Paper, Plastic or Full of Personality?
[Please note that this essay on Penelo's characterization within FFXII contains quite a lot of spoilers for the end of the game and the epilogue.]
I know, I know. I really shouldn’t suddenly decide to go off on a wild tangent now, considering I’ve got roughly 273837 other fandom projects to tend to. But in any case, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the always fascinating topic of female characterization within the Final Fantasy games-- in particular, about Penelo’s characterization-- or lack thereof-- within Final Fantasy XII. One of the more common refrains in discussion of the game is the idea of Penelo not having much of a personality and being a place-holder for young girls and/or just another bland love interest for the "main character" of the game, such as he is.
And even more specifically, I was inspired by a comment tenshi_kain made about just that subject here, which is reposted with his very kind permission.
He wrote:
As for "one of the blandest characters in the entire Final Fantasy series", that refers to Penelo… I really know no better way to describe her. I wish it could be "attractive street-smart orphan girl who's also a childhood friend of the town/city avatar and romantic interest of a young imperial heir" but her character is more slate than mosaic. Either one gives her layers and direction… that were all but perfunctorily given her in the game, or one makes her a self-insert, usually for Balthier, Basch, or Teen Larsa to plow (really, the only things separating Penelo from Inuyasha's Kagome, that most sordid of Mary Sues, is A) poverty and B) competence). No matter which I see- and I do see one more often, ehe- I just shake my head and wish for what could've been.
I don't mean to imply that that he's 'wrong' to feel this way about her. Lord knows that I hold enough views about FFXII (Vayne is hot! Rassler didn't particularly seem worth Ashe's sweet, sweet sexin'! Gabranth is a punk ass bitch!) that others don't. But this view of Penelo is sadly quite common and I wanted to explain why I feel she has more than enough character to spare and can be written about without a writer self inserting the hell out of her because of the writer's crush on whoever her love interest in a given story is.
First off, I won't dispute the fact that, out of everyone in the main party, she's the one who receives the least in-game background. The sum of all the facts we know about her is as follows:
1) She's 16 years old (17 in the American version)
2) She's Vaan's close friend
3) She makes her living as a dancer in the Muthru Bazaar and a shop-girl for Migelo's Sundries
4) Everyone in her family is dead due to the war with Archadia
5) Her brothers (who were in the Order of Dalmasca) taught her how to fight
6) She's still considered 'untested' as a warrior in terms of practical experience
7) She's still brave/crazy/suicidal enough to go on a world-saving quest despite that
8) She's lived with Vaan since she was 12
9) Her parents took Vaan (and possibly Reks) in when his parents died
10) She shares Vaan's dreams of being a sky pirate
11) She strikes up close friendship with Larsa Solidor that continues at least a year after they first met
12) She's got an incredibly cute rear and a would-be emperor who's already attracted to it
...Okay the last is more my opinion than anything else but still. ;) We learn far more about Fran's background than we ever do about Penelo's, even though Fran is another person (like Penelo and Vaan) who seem to follow Ashe around more to provide a playable character than because she has a driving need to be on Team Rescue the Repeatedly Imperiled And Imperiling Princess. We don't know Penelo's last name, any of the back stories of her family, why she really came on the quest, what her primary childhood trauma is (and she's a FF character-- it's inconceivable that she doesn't have something lurking) or any of that good stuff that helps give heft to a fictional person.
Yet for all of that, I strongly feel that Penelo does have a distinct character in the game that is all the more interesting because it’s seen more in teasing flashes than the large sections of exposition that you get with, say, Ashe-- who more or less is Penelo's opposite in terms of how much loving attention she receives from the cut-scenes. Though the "genki young girl/support character" has a long history in the Final Fantasy series-- see Yuffie, Selphie, Eiko and Rikku in roughly that order-- it doesn't mean this version of the character hasn't got some fun and interesting twists of her own.
One of the main characteristics often given to the "genki girl" in these sorts of games is a sense of-- though I hate this word dearly-- "spunk" and Penelo has this in spades. Just to bring up examples, she shows quite a lot of it early on, after she's been captured by Bangaa sky pirates who use her as bait to lure Balthier and company to Bhujerba. She certainly does her best to give them a piece of her mind when they come in to see her during this scene, which shows that she's either ridiculously brave or feeling vaguely suicidal after being influenced too much by Vaan's antics. Possibly both.
Standing up for herself in the face of grave danger is practically expected from someone in her place-- and yet, I find it interesting to view given how incredibly appropriate it is in her situation as well. If she were a Mary Sue, we'd likely have seen her always triumphing over her opponents-- yet in the case of the Bangaa bounty hunters, she doesn't escape from them because of her own battle prowess or cleverness-- she's freed when she's no longer needed as bait and sensibly runs away immediately... only to end up in the tender mercies of the somewhat-less-than-genki Judge Ghis afterwards. Being as much a punk-ass-bitch as his colleague Gabranth, he immediately attempts to lock her up... and though she protests against such, it's Larsa who has to eventually come to her rescue and drags her to a Bhujerban sugar shack of seduction to protect her.
(Incidentally, I find the reactions of Ghis and Hot Old Man Ondore hilarious in the aftermath of said rescue. I can just imagine the dialogue they must have had afterwards.
Ondore: So... do the nobles of House Solidor often take mistresses at so tender an age? Or is Lord Larsa the exception in this endeavour?
Ghis: Lord Larsa is almost always the exception. May God help us all.)
She's certainly no Mary Sue in these situations-- though it's clear she can keep up with most of the others in your main party by the time she rejoins you on the Leviathan, she's in no condition to fight off bounty hunters and judges on her lonesome self. I find that sort of realism refreshing, especially after some of the super-woman antics I’ve seen in the past. And right from the start, both the positives (bravery) and negatives (a certain fool-hardiness... or perhaps just a streak of fatalism) of her personality is revealed.
Second, she's got a very wide streak of protectiveness and kindness in her that's all the more charming for being down-played. Penelo's not the reincarnation of Mother Theresa in a kicky blue-and-yellow jump-suit with some interesting designs in her crotchular region… but she is continually concerned about others (witness her constant worries about Vaan running off and ending up in prison at the beginning of the game), tries to help people when they need it (try and count how often she asks Fran if she's okay or helps Fran up after she's been knocked out due to Mist overexposure) and generally tries to be there for her friends.
In fact, I think one of the shortest but most affecting moments in the game is after Larsa repels his brother‘s attack on the Bahamut and sends Vayne slinking off to a final Disturbingly-Grotesque-End-Boss-With-Wings (in a Final Fantasy game? Well I never!) transformation. Afterwards, Larsa collapses on his knees from (I'm assuming) a combination of exhaustion from the earlier fight and anguish over his brother's inevitable fate.
Most of the party go streaking off to finish the job afterwards and Basch stays to have a touching near-death-scene confrontation of sorts with his finally repentant brother. And all the while, Penelo seems to be the only one who realizes the magnitude of what Larsa’s done and how much it cost him to do it-- and the only one that pauses to try and help him in the aftermath. She’s the only one who tries to comfort Larsa -- a twelve year old boy who’s just lost the last of his family, who helped that family be lost-- and while that's glossed over in a matter of seconds, it's also shows more of Penelo's character than any number of platitudes would.
Third, beneath the fluffy blond pigtails, she's got a canny mind and a well-spring of sheer common sense that suits someone who spent quite a chunk of her life surviving off the streets. (But then, years of dealing with Vaan would probably make anyone develop those qualities out of sheer self-defense.) At the beginning of the game, she's the one to try and smack some sense into Vaan's sky-pirating and Empire-stealing dreams-- a task as heroic as it is futile. She's the one to remind him that orphans in Dalmasca need him and that his chances of evading creepy S&M antics in a dungeon if he continues to steal are nearly nil. She's the one who tells Vaan that sometimes, the little people of the world (like Migelo) have to scrape and bow to the big people (like Vayne) who rule their lives to survive.
She's the one who knows from the start that Vayne's pretty promises and hopes for peace at the beginning of his rule as Consul of Dalmasca are off in the first place. She's the one who very kindly does not bitch-slap Larsa for assuming all love the Archadian empire the way he does and even explains why succinctly. Penelo doesn't show many signs of the mad, plotty brilliance half the cast displays… but she's bright and it's interesting to see her struggle with the limitations of her life (and her friends!) in view of that.
Forth, Penelo's funny and spirited and-- this seems to be a rather rare quality in Ivalice-- down-right playful. Witness the various ways she acts in the background of cut-scenes (racing Vaan to the water on the Phon coast, hunkering down to look at the bottom of the Ridorana cataract, joking around with Vaan and Larsa on the Ozmone planes) to see examples. She's a teenage girl off in her first world-saving adventure and she acts like it too. In a game that's all about Destiny and Fighting the Inevitable and Restoring Peace to War Torn Lands, there's something incredibly refreshing about how human and even goofy she comes off as, though she's certainly capable of her serious moments. And given all that, for how 'disposable' her purpose in the plot seems to be, I feel she adds something of real value to the game.
And finally, besides all of the above, she has probably one of the most well developed and flat-out evil senses of humor in the entire game! Seriously, I just began the game again and watching her laugh at Vaan's various idiocies or tell him that he should apprentice himself to one of the nomad kids making sunstones because they know how to work or telling Larsa that it's okay to laugh at Vaan because someone needs to put him down puts quite a lot of joy into my heart. She and Vaan are seriously one of the adorably funky partnerships in the game.
In fact, it's little details like Penelo's snarky sense of humor-- and the fact that she's continually goofing off in the background during the cut-scenes and forming friendships with unlikely people (such as lady sky pirates and boy emperors) and gasping out loud in front of 'romantic' gestures Al-Cid makes and quoting bits of Tactics and shirking work at Migelo's and trying to tell Larsa to send Uncle Basch off to schtup Ashe in the ending letter-- that really endear her to me. For all that we don't see much of Penelo during the plots, she still comes off as very vital to me, with the sort of quirks and details and flaws someone I'd know in real life would have. In fact, perhaps the fact that we don't see much of her that makes her come alive to me. After all, it's not like we have the benefit of seeing soul-searching cut-scenes from RL folks. No, it's little character moments like the ones Penelo has scattered through the game that make up what we experience most in the real world.
In any case, I'd love to hear your own thoughts on this issue. Is Penelo a 'real' character in FFXII or a character fanfic writers have to continually create for themselves? Is she continually Mary-Sue'd or self-inserted so pervy fic writers (heeee!) can pretend to hook up with their gaming male of choice? And finally-- do you enjoy her character as it is in the game? Or did you have to come to like her over time-- if you ever reached that point?
I know, I know. I really shouldn’t suddenly decide to go off on a wild tangent now, considering I’ve got roughly 273837 other fandom projects to tend to. But in any case, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the always fascinating topic of female characterization within the Final Fantasy games-- in particular, about Penelo’s characterization-- or lack thereof-- within Final Fantasy XII. One of the more common refrains in discussion of the game is the idea of Penelo not having much of a personality and being a place-holder for young girls and/or just another bland love interest for the "main character" of the game, such as he is.
And even more specifically, I was inspired by a comment tenshi_kain made about just that subject here, which is reposted with his very kind permission.
He wrote:
As for "one of the blandest characters in the entire Final Fantasy series", that refers to Penelo… I really know no better way to describe her. I wish it could be "attractive street-smart orphan girl who's also a childhood friend of the town/city avatar and romantic interest of a young imperial heir" but her character is more slate than mosaic. Either one gives her layers and direction… that were all but perfunctorily given her in the game, or one makes her a self-insert, usually for Balthier, Basch, or Teen Larsa to plow (really, the only things separating Penelo from Inuyasha's Kagome, that most sordid of Mary Sues, is A) poverty and B) competence). No matter which I see- and I do see one more often, ehe- I just shake my head and wish for what could've been.
I don't mean to imply that that he's 'wrong' to feel this way about her. Lord knows that I hold enough views about FFXII (Vayne is hot! Rassler didn't particularly seem worth Ashe's sweet, sweet sexin'! Gabranth is a punk ass bitch!) that others don't. But this view of Penelo is sadly quite common and I wanted to explain why I feel she has more than enough character to spare and can be written about without a writer self inserting the hell out of her because of the writer's crush on whoever her love interest in a given story is.
First off, I won't dispute the fact that, out of everyone in the main party, she's the one who receives the least in-game background. The sum of all the facts we know about her is as follows:
1) She's 16 years old (17 in the American version)
2) She's Vaan's close friend
3) She makes her living as a dancer in the Muthru Bazaar and a shop-girl for Migelo's Sundries
4) Everyone in her family is dead due to the war with Archadia
5) Her brothers (who were in the Order of Dalmasca) taught her how to fight
6) She's still considered 'untested' as a warrior in terms of practical experience
7) She's still brave/crazy/suicidal enough to go on a world-saving quest despite that
8) She's lived with Vaan since she was 12
9) Her parents took Vaan (and possibly Reks) in when his parents died
10) She shares Vaan's dreams of being a sky pirate
11) She strikes up close friendship with Larsa Solidor that continues at least a year after they first met
12) She's got an incredibly cute rear and a would-be emperor who's already attracted to it
...Okay the last is more my opinion than anything else but still. ;) We learn far more about Fran's background than we ever do about Penelo's, even though Fran is another person (like Penelo and Vaan) who seem to follow Ashe around more to provide a playable character than because she has a driving need to be on Team Rescue the Repeatedly Imperiled And Imperiling Princess. We don't know Penelo's last name, any of the back stories of her family, why she really came on the quest, what her primary childhood trauma is (and she's a FF character-- it's inconceivable that she doesn't have something lurking) or any of that good stuff that helps give heft to a fictional person.
Yet for all of that, I strongly feel that Penelo does have a distinct character in the game that is all the more interesting because it’s seen more in teasing flashes than the large sections of exposition that you get with, say, Ashe-- who more or less is Penelo's opposite in terms of how much loving attention she receives from the cut-scenes. Though the "genki young girl/support character" has a long history in the Final Fantasy series-- see Yuffie, Selphie, Eiko and Rikku in roughly that order-- it doesn't mean this version of the character hasn't got some fun and interesting twists of her own.
One of the main characteristics often given to the "genki girl" in these sorts of games is a sense of-- though I hate this word dearly-- "spunk" and Penelo has this in spades. Just to bring up examples, she shows quite a lot of it early on, after she's been captured by Bangaa sky pirates who use her as bait to lure Balthier and company to Bhujerba. She certainly does her best to give them a piece of her mind when they come in to see her during this scene, which shows that she's either ridiculously brave or feeling vaguely suicidal after being influenced too much by Vaan's antics. Possibly both.
Standing up for herself in the face of grave danger is practically expected from someone in her place-- and yet, I find it interesting to view given how incredibly appropriate it is in her situation as well. If she were a Mary Sue, we'd likely have seen her always triumphing over her opponents-- yet in the case of the Bangaa bounty hunters, she doesn't escape from them because of her own battle prowess or cleverness-- she's freed when she's no longer needed as bait and sensibly runs away immediately... only to end up in the tender mercies of the somewhat-less-than-genki Judge Ghis afterwards. Being as much a punk-ass-bitch as his colleague Gabranth, he immediately attempts to lock her up... and though she protests against such, it's Larsa who has to eventually come to her rescue and drags her to a Bhujerban sugar shack of seduction to protect her.
(Incidentally, I find the reactions of Ghis and Hot Old Man Ondore hilarious in the aftermath of said rescue. I can just imagine the dialogue they must have had afterwards.
Ondore: So... do the nobles of House Solidor often take mistresses at so tender an age? Or is Lord Larsa the exception in this endeavour?
Ghis: Lord Larsa is almost always the exception. May God help us all.)
She's certainly no Mary Sue in these situations-- though it's clear she can keep up with most of the others in your main party by the time she rejoins you on the Leviathan, she's in no condition to fight off bounty hunters and judges on her lonesome self. I find that sort of realism refreshing, especially after some of the super-woman antics I’ve seen in the past. And right from the start, both the positives (bravery) and negatives (a certain fool-hardiness... or perhaps just a streak of fatalism) of her personality is revealed.
Second, she's got a very wide streak of protectiveness and kindness in her that's all the more charming for being down-played. Penelo's not the reincarnation of Mother Theresa in a kicky blue-and-yellow jump-suit with some interesting designs in her crotchular region… but she is continually concerned about others (witness her constant worries about Vaan running off and ending up in prison at the beginning of the game), tries to help people when they need it (try and count how often she asks Fran if she's okay or helps Fran up after she's been knocked out due to Mist overexposure) and generally tries to be there for her friends.
In fact, I think one of the shortest but most affecting moments in the game is after Larsa repels his brother‘s attack on the Bahamut and sends Vayne slinking off to a final Disturbingly-Grotesque-End-Boss-With-Wings (in a Final Fantasy game? Well I never!) transformation. Afterwards, Larsa collapses on his knees from (I'm assuming) a combination of exhaustion from the earlier fight and anguish over his brother's inevitable fate.
Most of the party go streaking off to finish the job afterwards and Basch stays to have a touching near-death-scene confrontation of sorts with his finally repentant brother. And all the while, Penelo seems to be the only one who realizes the magnitude of what Larsa’s done and how much it cost him to do it-- and the only one that pauses to try and help him in the aftermath. She’s the only one who tries to comfort Larsa -- a twelve year old boy who’s just lost the last of his family, who helped that family be lost-- and while that's glossed over in a matter of seconds, it's also shows more of Penelo's character than any number of platitudes would.
Third, beneath the fluffy blond pigtails, she's got a canny mind and a well-spring of sheer common sense that suits someone who spent quite a chunk of her life surviving off the streets. (But then, years of dealing with Vaan would probably make anyone develop those qualities out of sheer self-defense.) At the beginning of the game, she's the one to try and smack some sense into Vaan's sky-pirating and Empire-stealing dreams-- a task as heroic as it is futile. She's the one to remind him that orphans in Dalmasca need him and that his chances of evading creepy S&M antics in a dungeon if he continues to steal are nearly nil. She's the one who tells Vaan that sometimes, the little people of the world (like Migelo) have to scrape and bow to the big people (like Vayne) who rule their lives to survive.
She's the one who knows from the start that Vayne's pretty promises and hopes for peace at the beginning of his rule as Consul of Dalmasca are off in the first place. She's the one who very kindly does not bitch-slap Larsa for assuming all love the Archadian empire the way he does and even explains why succinctly. Penelo doesn't show many signs of the mad, plotty brilliance half the cast displays… but she's bright and it's interesting to see her struggle with the limitations of her life (and her friends!) in view of that.
Forth, Penelo's funny and spirited and-- this seems to be a rather rare quality in Ivalice-- down-right playful. Witness the various ways she acts in the background of cut-scenes (racing Vaan to the water on the Phon coast, hunkering down to look at the bottom of the Ridorana cataract, joking around with Vaan and Larsa on the Ozmone planes) to see examples. She's a teenage girl off in her first world-saving adventure and she acts like it too. In a game that's all about Destiny and Fighting the Inevitable and Restoring Peace to War Torn Lands, there's something incredibly refreshing about how human and even goofy she comes off as, though she's certainly capable of her serious moments. And given all that, for how 'disposable' her purpose in the plot seems to be, I feel she adds something of real value to the game.
And finally, besides all of the above, she has probably one of the most well developed and flat-out evil senses of humor in the entire game! Seriously, I just began the game again and watching her laugh at Vaan's various idiocies or tell him that he should apprentice himself to one of the nomad kids making sunstones because they know how to work or telling Larsa that it's okay to laugh at Vaan because someone needs to put him down puts quite a lot of joy into my heart. She and Vaan are seriously one of the adorably funky partnerships in the game.
In fact, it's little details like Penelo's snarky sense of humor-- and the fact that she's continually goofing off in the background during the cut-scenes and forming friendships with unlikely people (such as lady sky pirates and boy emperors) and gasping out loud in front of 'romantic' gestures Al-Cid makes and quoting bits of Tactics and shirking work at Migelo's and trying to tell Larsa to send Uncle Basch off to schtup Ashe in the ending letter-- that really endear her to me. For all that we don't see much of Penelo during the plots, she still comes off as very vital to me, with the sort of quirks and details and flaws someone I'd know in real life would have. In fact, perhaps the fact that we don't see much of her that makes her come alive to me. After all, it's not like we have the benefit of seeing soul-searching cut-scenes from RL folks. No, it's little character moments like the ones Penelo has scattered through the game that make up what we experience most in the real world.
In any case, I'd love to hear your own thoughts on this issue. Is Penelo a 'real' character in FFXII or a character fanfic writers have to continually create for themselves? Is she continually Mary-Sue'd or self-inserted so pervy fic writers (heeee!) can pretend to hook up with their gaming male of choice? And finally-- do you enjoy her character as it is in the game? Or did you have to come to like her over time-- if you ever reached that point?