FFXII Essay: Penelo: Paper, Plastic or Full of Personality?

[mariagoner]

[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

Comments

[artemischan]

I believe that I first started enjoying Penelo as a character when I saw just how normal she was. Pretty much everyone else in the part has a purpose, some driving need to accompany Ashe on her crazy-ass mission, but Penelo's just along for the ride, getting to see the world.

PS-Ghis and Gabranth should have a fight to see who is the bigger punk-ass bitch!

[mariagoner]

Oh god, since I hate Ghis and Gabranth both, that fight would indeed leave me as the eventual winner. Where be my death match?!

And yeah, that's what I love about Penelo as well. She's just so refreshingly ordinary-- but in a fun, quirky sort of way!-- compared to all the emotional wangst and drama and heaviness around her. I've never even liked the 'genki girl character' before but given how much of a contrast she was to the world around her, I more or less fell in love with her character. ♥

[artemischan]

The thing that really gets me is that she really isn't the 'genki girl character', per se. She has the makings of it, but since she kinda keeps to the background, Penelo doesn't have that inherent 'annoying' quality that the genki girl character has (see: Eiko, Selphie). For as small a part as she has, especially in relation to the plot, Penelo is very 'real'.

Okay, time to talk about this death match! Who do you think would win the "Punk-ass Bitch Deathmatch"? Ghis or Gabranth?

[mariagoner]

Gabranth > Ghis for me, big-time. I mean, even Gabrath ("even a stray has it's pride!") managed to redeem himself by rebelling against Vayne at the 11th hour. Ghis was his trolly little bitch till the end. God did I love kicking his ass within the game. XD

And yeah, compared to many of her predecessors, Penelo was much less annoying and twittish and much more series, which suits the game she's in. Still, she was very much a little spot of levity amongst all the big glaring emo plot points and I'll never stop adoring her character for that. ♥

[digitaltart]

Very good. I like her best out of all the Interchangeable Perky Female Sidekicks this series has shown me thus far.

She has the added bonus of being voiced by the same woman that did Mission Vao in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, where she played almost exactly the same type of character only blue. And she liked to blow stuff up.

[selphish]

Wow, I had no idea that Mission's voice actor was Penelo's too! And come to think of it, they are a lot alike.

Maria, agree with you on all accounts; I see Penelo as one of the most 'normal' female characters in the Final Fantasy series, rather than some flaming Mary Sue.

[mariagoner]

Heh, whatever else Penelo is, she is most definitely not a Mary Sue! In fact, that's what I like best about her. ;) ♥

[mariagoner]

Me too! Penelo > Selphie, Rikku and even Yuffie (though she's awesome as well) for me. She's just such a contrast to the dreary world around her that it's hard not to adore her antics. ♥

[leaute]

I enjoy Penelo as a character. Everything you spoke of rings true, and I wouldn't dream of saying that she has no personality or appeal. What I do wish is that she'd had more significance to the plot. To be fair, though, it's almost excusable with her because a lot of her reasoning for being around is tied to Vaan. She's a supporting character, so her role doesn't really need to involve changing the world by herself or having deep, thought-provoking character changes every five minutes. This isn't to say that everything Penelo is tied to everything Vaan or that she's not her own character because she very much is; her background is just heavily tied to Vaan, however, as is in her reason for being in the party

[mariagoner]

Vaan is the reason a lot of the members in the party are together, isn't he? If you think about it, he's not really the "main character" in the fact that his decisions drive many of the plot points in the game or that he's the central hub most of the party's actions revolve around-- that is most definitely Ashe, like you said. But he's the reason that people like Penelo and Balthier and Ashe even come together into a cohesive group in the first place and I suppose in that regard, he's a very important character.

And yeah, I loved how bright Penelo and Vaan were in an otherwise very gloomy, plot-driven game. The atmosphere was stifling at times-- though it was appropriate for the Ivalice as written-- and it was nice to have a sense of faith and optimism that Penelo especially provided with her words during Giruvegan and the prologue.

[anonymous_proxy]

I believe that Penelo is a real character of FFXII, she's a lot more likeable than said others *coughAshecough*. I believe that she was meant to be sort of the girl next door so that more players could connect with her because obviously.. very few gamers can connect with a sexy ass Viera or a short skirt-wearing ex-princess who's husband was tragically killed in battle

[mariagoner]

Heh, that's true, out of everybody in the game, Penelo and Vaan are probably the characters that the (mostly) ordinary people who play the game can relate to! In light of that, actually, it's surprising that there's so little fic being written about them. Well, maybe it's their very ordinariness that's holding them back.

And yay for odd-ball pairings... though now I'm tempted to devise an evil fic for Penelo/Dr. Cid, just because of something Mithrigil mentioned up ahead. XD But I find that she's written a lot of less than Fran and Ashe, though her character likely is easier to write about. It's sad because she is a great character with vast swatches of backstory to fill in but eh, what can you do but write and hope to redress that imbalance just a bit?

::goes back to giant ball of plotty fanfic plots::

[tenshi_kain]

Thanks for the link; this was an engaging, thoughtful read. Let's see if I'm a little less hard on our sexy blonde dancer the sight of whose smooth midriff was cruelly denied me in the game oh but of course I got to see Basch's enviably toned six-pack thanks a lot for equal representation Square. ;P

Like mithrigil said, the problem isn't that Penelo is void of character, but that her character lacks flesh to the degree where it is easier for authors to superimpose their identities on her. Penelo isn't an inherent Mary Sue, but it's easier to get away with making her one. It's a similar problem that plagues Final Fantasy VIII and Chrono Cross and Kingdom Hearts (uugh). Very few, and sometimes none, of the characters receive the development necessary to make it obvious when someone is taking them OOC. Thus, you can pretty much put them in any kind of story, give them nearly any kind of personality, and yet it won't seem to be a direct violation of what we saw in the game. Want to make Rinoa a fussy drama queen who has eyes for Irvine to

[mariagoner]

If it's any consolation, in RW, it looks as though we'll be seeing much more of Penelo's mid-riff and much less of Basch's six-pack. Yay for gender imbalance, right? ;)

And I never quite thought of it that way but yes, the way the game developers went about setting in character details really does seem more like the sort of thing that would appear in a mini-series than in a video game. (Mayhap I didn't because I took upwards of 120 hours finishing the game... damn those crazy addictive hunts!) It's definitely a change from the usual hit-people-over-the-head-with-the-anvil-of-characterization that most predominates in the series. But even though it's a bit frustrating... well, I like the characters as they are and I appreciate their motives being a bit shadowy, instead of being screamed at from the roof-tops. I do wish the developers had given us more backstory on everyone, but it's fun to infer why they did what they did in 'fic