The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Despite me being totally jaded with games today, I'm still a sucker for those kind of plot. Sure, they probably have existed as long as there were mechanical entities in games, which would date back to at least the Megaman era. By feelingless, of course, I don't necessarily limit this plot line to robotic characters. For example Terra in FF6 can be considered as going from love-less to learning what love means. Anyway, there are plenty of such plot line that ends up sucking, but I'm not concerned about that. What I find especially annoying this plot line is that the game maker often feels compelled to remind you that the said being is NOT supposed to have feelings. A recent example would be KOS-MOS in Xenosaga, who goes through great lengths to remind you that she is merely a machine and she only thinks in numbers. If this was the first RPG or perhaps game you've ever played in your life you might get fooled, but otherwise, it's really superficial. I feel like the game maker should be holding up a sign that says: "This is when you should realize how it's incredible the said character gains the ability to understand emotion, despite not being able to in theory!" It is, frankly, quite insulting. I think anyone who has played a few games could figure out that invariably all things that are created not to have feelings ends up understanding what emotions are.

I mean people who make robots or whatever merciless weapon of destruction must all really suck at it, because they can't even keep those feelingless automatons of destruction from becoming weak like mere humans. Going back to Megaman, who's probably the first console gaming character I can think of that has this line of plot. I mean Megaman certainly isn't known for complex plot or anything but they never make a big deal out of the fact that robots aren't supposed to have feelings. But that's why Megaman flows so naturally. While most robots are just destroying stuff you got the household cook Megaman going out to stop them not because he was programmed to, because he wanted to. The game never tried to emphasize on the fact how different this behavior is, because you as the gamer should be smart enough to pick that up. I, as a gamer, would like to think I'm smart enough to recognize character development when it's done right, instead of having a big sign saying 'look character development!'</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>And I haven't played any Megaman games in what feels like centuries. Squall is sort of a pseudo character of this type; he appears on the outside to be a rock solid unfeeling war machine for SeeD, but you know by his thoughts that he is not really like this at all. I don't really remember Final Fantasy 9 all that well, but I think Vivi would probably fit well into this category.

Still, I think my all-time favourite RPG character is Gilder, that guy lives the good life =)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>And Lucia could've been a bit more powerful considering she was supposed to be the Destroyer, and same with Terra. RPGs really aren't good at making characters that are supposed to be way overpowered. I mean you're supposed to have characters that are like TG Cid on Steroids but they never work out anything close to how powerful they ought to be.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's fairly easy to see that Squall is one of the most well developed characters within a videogame.

Squall's character after the first few minutes of Final Fantasy 8:

He begins as a star student so to speak, and his rival Seifer has always held an enormous amount of jealousy towards him. As I described in other words above, he is viewed by the others (except those who seem to know him best) as a rather cool character, stuck up, and heavily elitest. One aspect of Final Fantasy 8 is that it focusses development on character interaction, and unlike any other Final Fantasy game (or RPG that I can think of at the moment), Squall is the only character whose thoughts you can read throughout the duration of the game, which also gives him another dimension (he says one thing, but then when you read what he's thinking, it might be something completely different). Generally at the beginning he doesn't really like anyone who is not of a great ability. The only one he really respects is Seifer, and Seifer being the jealous character views Squall in that light (and his jealousy leads him on the path to Ressurecting the full power of Hyne for Sorceress Ultimecia); however, Squall does not look up to Seifer, he kind of sees him as juvenile because of Seifer's jealousy; even though Squall does know of Seifer's great ability. The character of Squall is built on by all of his interactions with nearly every other character in the game, his background information, his contrast with the character Laguna, and his own thoughts. There are no other RPG's that I can think of which build this much on a character.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>Plus after just replaying it myself after I hated it the first time I have to admit that it is by far one of the best stories in an RPG or any video game for that matter. Not THE best but easily one of the best. So far I've only played through it 3 times now and started again but you catch new things every time and it's getting better every time. I guess it's sort of like Donnie Darko was in that respect. To catch everything you gotta go through it over and over again and it gets better every time. Squall is definitely one of the best main characters. Better than most others at least</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>He is not a convincing leader despite the game's attempt to portray him as leading SeeD to victory.

He's pretty much an introvert and there's no reason for anyone to look up to him besides his combat abilities, which are admitedly considerable. But super powerful heroes are dime a dozen in RPG.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Squall's just a Shinji (from Eva) clone. I can see Laguna being an interesting character, but Squall? No way. Just another super powerful RPG hero with unrealistic leadership abilities due to his heritage that is in no ways convincing.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Shinji has mainly submissive traits, he is also unstable. Squall on the otherhand has very dominant character traits, he is elitest, and very stable. Laguna, is supposed to be the contrast of Squall; Squall notes that he believes Laguna is a loser "I drempt that I was a loser", or something similar, he says during disk one after his first encounter with the past. Laguna is the complete oposite of elitest. Whether you believe that either Squall or Laguna have leadership abilities is subjective, if you don't believe it, then I probably can't change your mind, but I can point out the reasons why they are leaders: As for Squall's leadership position, it is based on the faith which Cid had in him as a leader; Squall had accomplished a number of goals which included saving the Garden and its loyal populace from Garden Master NORG when he attempted to eliminate the SeeD group. Laguna was chosen to be leader of the revolutionary group based on the fact that he was anti-elitest, that he could befriend even Moomba's, etc.. this is stated within the game during the flashback to the prison scene while he is in Odine's Lunatic Pandora research facility.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Let's entrust the future of the Garden to someone who treats other SeeD members as downright rude (e.g. "Go talk to a wall" to Quistis). Squall has no communication skills. It's not clear if he ever even talked to any of the other SeeD members besides complaining how everything sucks. He dislikes Laguna because Laguna is well-liked and a natural leader, unlike him. He does not want a positino of leadership. He spent all this time relying on Ellone even though Ellone does virtually nothing to begin with besides having special powers to send people back in time.

As for saving the Garden that's just the typical feat of a RPG hero that's to be expected. Every loser RPG hero can pull any number of heroic feats Squall did.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Do not take this discussion seriously. Arguing about the merits of an RPG character is like holding a seminar on the politics of urination--slightly amusing, but ultimately of infinitesimal import.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Oh come on! I've seen college students get into fist fights over comic book heroes vs comic book heroes! Let'em fight! =8^)</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>>Let's entrust the future of the Garden to someone who treats other SeeD members as downright rude (e.g. "Go talk to a wall" to Quistis).

Squall is strait forward, sometimes he comes off as rude, but that is a part of being an elitest character. The largest example I can think of where he asks Rinoa what she thinks they think about how she goes about business (IE, having a meeting on the floor). Rudeness is one of Seifer's major character traits though. Also, rudeness is not a counter-attribute towards leadership skills in a military type environment. Squall treated everyone how they should have been treated.

>Squall has no communication skills.

Squall has plenty of communication skills, but when dealing with himself, he is not a very open person.

>It's not clear if he ever even talked to any of the other SeeD members besides complaining how everything sucks. He does not want a positino of leadership.

Perhaps it's been a long time since you played the game? This is fairly innacurate info, I don't recall a point in the game where he said he didn't want to be leader, the closest I can think of that would give you this idea was shortly after FH when he said he didn't want to make an opening speech right away when Cid made him the leader of SeeD.

>He dislikes Laguna because Laguna is well-liked and a natural leader, unlike him.

He dislikes Laguna because Laguna lacked confidence, and seemed to be a loser in his opinion; on disk 1. Laguna was actually the character who had the poor communication skills if you recall all of his parts within the flashback scenes. Also, the majority of people within the Garden look up to Squall because of his abilities and because of his deeds, this is said on disk 2 and disk 3.


>He spent all this time relying on Ellone even though Ellone does virtually nothing to begin with besides having special powers to send people back in time.

Ellone was the link between Squall and Laguna as she was using Squalls abilities to try and prevent Laguna from leaving Raine (in her time of need) to seek her (Ellone) out when she (Ellone) was a child. Squall only relied on Ellone when he was a child, by the time he was grown up he did not even remember her (until disk 3).


>As for saving the Garden that's just the typical feat of a RPG hero that's to be expected.

It's part of the story in Final Fantasy 8 which leads up to Squall becoming the leader of SeeD.

>Every loser RPG hero can pull any number of heroic feats Squall did.

loser and hero are antonymous terms.</div>