Character's ages - Make sense or off the mark

Do you think the look of the characters and the assigned ages make sense or off the mark?


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cinvowell

Ex-Soldier
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Gil
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Tristan
I wanted everyone's opinion on the ages of the characters - do you think they got the ages and the look of the characters on target or off the mark?

Personally, I think some characters in past Final Fantasys and in XV are a little off the mark. To me, Noc and Prompto act close to the assigned ages, if sometimes a little younger, but at that age it's normal but they look to me a couple years younger. Ignis I'd say is the closest on target. I would have guessed 25 but a couple years one way or the other doesn't matter (just like Noc and Prompto) and his cooking skills - I've known people who could give experts a run for their money at a very young age. Gladio on the other hand, his looks (and his rank), to me, don't match the age they've assigned him. They drew him looking much older then 23, more like in his 30's, closer to mid 30's. Gladio's mentor, Cor, his set age and his looks are on target but his back story doesn't make sense to me. Joined the Guard at 13 and became a bodyguard at 15. Would a 15 year old have the kind of strength to handle that rank?

I know my opinion is from a western background (United States). I couldn't picture a 13 year old going into the military (not to be confused with military school) and making it to Lieutenant Colonel 2 years later but other countries look at things differently still it would be nice if back stories, the look of the character and the assigned age come close to matching or error in the opposite direction.

This is only my opinion, and I've been told I get too much into the characters and the story line, but hay, I'm having fun. :griin:
 
As far as looks, nah, I don't think they're off the mark. Then again, oftentimes I feel that these characters are designed to accommodate most ages between 18-40 or so. They may look young, but they also look refined and developed like someone in their mid twenties or older. And the same goes with their personalities; I feel age is usually intentionally avoided as an identifier, unless that's part of that character's arc like Vaan from XII, or Vivi from IX.

As far as their capabilities at these ages is concerned, that's just sort of a fantasy thing, and less of a cultural thing. Whether it's Dragon Ball, Final Fantasy, Attack On Titan, Ben 10, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Digimon, fantastical media tends to portray characters or worlds where stuff like that can occur. What's normal, or a bit extraordinary in their world is used to up the stakes for viewers in our world. It can give those characters a bit of extra interest. And that's besides the fact that a lot of this media is made with younger teens or kids in mind, who generally gravitate toward heroes more their age (or so the marketers will tell you). But it'd be boring to watch an action show with a bumbling normal teen with normal capabilities.
 
I can buy Gladio being 23. Heck, I've known guys in their early twenties who are already balding and look like they're in their mid-thirties. Granted, they lack the biceps and physique of a bodybuilder who might have also dabbled in some pro wrestling in the recent past, but someone like Gladiolus is certainly not outside the realms of possibility at all. Cor being inducted into the Guard at such an early age, rising to become bodyguard while still in his mid-teens and managing to survive Gilgamesh's trial when many seasoned and older veterans could not certainly stretches credibility. Given that there's not much else to his backstory, I've little to say about that besides the fact that this is reminiscent of many other Japanese properties where relatively young individuals manage to attain prestigious military positions by the time they reach an age at which young people in the real world graduate college. Such characters are chiefly there to inspire and invite awe. It's easy for a rather young audience to connect with a prodigy whom they consider to be "badass" because of their precociousness - without that character being *too* old that they're the equivalent of a Baby Boomer going on about 'Nam. Otherwise, I can easily buy that all the main characters are the age they are described to be.

My thoughts on how dire a character Luna is aside, I give them credit for the willingness to make their heroine a 24 year old woman. It's a break from the usual norm of heroines being roughly 15-20 in JRPGs, and you generally don't see main characters pursue a romance with a (slightly) older individual. Potentially it's a sign that Square now recognises that the average demographic age of current Final Fantasy players and the wider audience they're attempting to reach is somewhere in the mid-twenties as opposed to teenagers (hello, Vaan. Did a committee include you in FFXII?). Heck, the fact that there's a weird ten year time skip and an older Noctis seems to lend credence to the company finally recognising that the audience for Final Fantasy has changed.
 
People age at different rates, I guess.

Like Linnaete I do know some men in their early or mid-twenties who already look about 30+. Meanwhile there are some men in their thirties who look like they have barely left Sixth Form...

I'm thankfully aging into my own face a bit more now (though I'd welcome that process to halt now that it has started! :argor:), but for the longest time I looked like a furby. I looked (and still look) nothing like Gladio and I suspect that I never will.

So I can believe that these characters are the ages that they are given by the developers, even though seeing Gladio looking as ripped as he is while behaving casual and cool makes me rather jealous. Whilst initially shocking to learn that I’m older than a character who looks like that, I know that there are many men who look like that at a young age. I tell myself that they must have spent years in a Hyperbolic Time Chamber or something because it makes it easier to digest… In truth there are some extraordinary people out there in our world, and there are many prodigies.

Final Fantasy (and much fantastical fiction) always exaggerates the concept the extraordinary person into something which might seem unrecognisable on our own planet, but the idea is the same.

Although the things that the characters do are farfetched for people in their early twenties, FFXV is more realistic than many fantasy games (or many fantasy stories in general), so I’d give them credit for that.

Then again as I reflect on this I realise that there are many FF games with the leads either being in their twenties or 18+. Firion (18), Cecil (20s), Bartz (20s), Terra (18), Locke (20s), Cloud (21), Aerith and Tifa (20s), and so on.

The slightly younger cast of FFIX (with Zidane and Garnet being 16, etc) is an exception rather than a rule, and realism in FFIX really does not matter due to the setting of that particular game.

For FFXV, however, it does matter. The characters are young, but they are not teenagers. This isn’t a power fantasy like FFVIII where the students outdo their teachers and save the world. FFXV's characters are young adults who are thrust into a situation in which the world that they knew started to crumble, and they were forced to adapt, take responsibility, and do their duty for the world of Eos.

Like these other FF games with characters in their twenties, the chocobros are still young enough to be fresh faced and regarded as youths dealing with becoming adults, yet they are not too young to be doing some of the actions which we see them perform (slaying colossal monsters aside, of course – nobody can do that!). Having youths lead the cast is an age-old motif in fiction, and coming of age is really what a lot of these stories end up being about once you remove the magic and monsters.

FFXV is no different.
 
I think making Gladio's age somewhere between 30 to 34 still would have worked. When they set the characters on FF XII, Basch was listed as 36 and he had a similar rank and position to Gladio - Gladiolus being King's shield and Basch being Captain in the Order of Knights of Dalmasca serving beside and charged with protecting Lord Rasler, prince of Nabradia in battle.
 
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