Thanks for everybody's replies so far, and I have to apologize for making use of words like "bad-ass" to judge Minfilia (it's kind of a bait), but now with all the helpful answers I can see that she really is supposed to be in a leadership position with help of her Echo abilities. It seems a missed opportunity not to let her interact with the main character a bit more, similar to what we got with the Cid storyline. Or even let her be the one who contacted you at the start instead of Hydaelyn?
Oh well, I guess character lore is not the main focus for ARR for now anyway.
