Waxing intellectual about Final Fantasy XII

Okay, so, I don't know why I thought about this, but I was thinking about Vaan and Penelo, and what kind of role they have in FFXII. Mostly because it came up as a topic last night during Immortal. It comes down to this, really.

People have made comparisons between Star Wars and FFXII. But I don't think FFXII is a retelling of Star Wars so much as inspired by The Hidden Fortress, a Kurosawa film that Star Wars drew much of its material from. In The Hidden Fortress, the movie follows two bumbling and inept-at-everything peasants. They're wrapped up in something way over their heads, and often bog things down for everyone else. The problem comes when we are asked to like the characters. Final Fantasy is notorious for this. In just about every game since Seven, there's been characters we've been asked to like, and they're just about the most hated characters in the game. Lately, they've been the main characters. This is why a lot of people hate Vaan. We're so used to being asked to like certain characters in the game that we have a volitile reaction to him. But Kurosawa movies often include a few bumbling characters. The farmers and Kikuchiyo (though Kikuchiyo grows up during the movie and becomes surprisingly capable) in Seven Samurai, and the group of young samurai in Yojimbo are prime examples of this. You really don't have to like them, but what I'm saying is that they're the Tahei and Matakishi of Final Fantasy XII. That's really what I think SE was going for.

Of course, if I could pry myself from FFXI long enough to play XII more, I'd probably have a better idea of what's going on with them.