Minor thoughts on FF8.
Just wanted to post some notes about FF8, since I finished replaying it recently.
Mostly I just wanted to talk about Squall. It always felt like he was judged to be this sort of whiny, "emo" protagonist compared to Cloud's coolness or Zidane's outgoing, streetwise nature. But Squall isn't particularly whiny and his "...Whatever" nature is totally understandable given the context of what he's been through.
Squall was orphaned as a child. Then the "big sister" he loved was sent away. Then he was sent away to a military school. He was repeatedly made to feel abandoned before he was even a teenager. In order to cope with these feelings of abandonment, he isolated himself socially, out of a fear of forming another emotional attachment only to lose it again.
I, personally, can relate to this. Like, it's absolutely natural he would behave the way he does. He becomes this quiet, hardworking, capable student-fighter who is kind of a loner, who is reticent to share his feelings, whose primary relationship at the start of the game is not a friendship, but a rivalry, with a classmate who he can share a mutual hostility with.
But the whole point is that he is reticent to express his feelings or form attachments. His instructor and classmates can read his reactions like a book. And they still form attachments to him, and he still forms relationships with them, even if from his side it feels cold, detached, quiet, annoyed.
He struggles with having to "enter the real world". That is, to put his combat and leadership skills to use in real-life situations. He's competent and capable (though not an inspiring leader), but he's still a child. He is anxious, afraid. He develops feelings for and attachments to his friends and his enemies, and the gravity of what can and does happen gets to him.
He freezes up. He lashes out. He acts too cool about the possibility of Seifer being killed... until it starts being talked about, and he loses his cool at the idea of being spoken of in the past tense. Not just because he doesn't want it to happen to him... but he doesn't like that it's happening to Seifer, either.
He is afraid of real loss, real danger, real stakes, real consequences. Because he's already been hurt and he knows how serious it all is. So he's serious about it. But he's still a child.