Child-like characters?

[Melichoir]

The creep factor comes in because Thancred sorta helped raise Minfilia for 15 years after her dad died in the 1.0 Ul’dah intro echo scene. It’s touched on more in 1.0. At the very least he was a big brother figure and has known her since she was 12. In 2.0, Minfilia is 27 and Thancred is 32, but his age is locked in at ~27 since he’s an archon if that means anything. I still wouldn’t ship it. And Ryne is right out.

Thancred is actually 32 years old in ARR, and probably still is, due to the whole time bubble thing in lore. I think Minfilia is around 22 years old in ARR, but the Encyclopaedia Eorzea only mentions when she first experiences the Echo (at around 17 years old) so her actual age depends when she formed the Path of the Twelve. (Edit: Completely missed the first sentence that mentions her current age as 27) I'd say that's at least old enough to be sort of an older brother figure, with how much he wanted to protect her.

Even wierder then cause their personalities dont line up this way by the way theyre written and presented. If they wanted to do the couple route, 27/32 pairing isnt unusual nor creepy? 4-5 year age gaps between couples that are late 20s or early 30s isnt uncommon. But for the sake of argument, yeah, I could see the older brother angle more readily than father figure. That never worked as a plot point for me simply because the characters didnt really display that attitude from my PoV. Theres a pretty big difference in the older brother being protective of a younger sister and a father figure. This then comes across as either a translation or writing issue. Seems to line up cause when you take into context Ryne, his reservations and disdain towards Ryne becomes unusually weird. From themes alone, Thancred shouldnt feel nearly that much animosity towards Ryne for the reasons he does if the relationship was completely platonic between him and Minfillia. This is the writers failing to write the characters interactions and motivations correctly, translation errors, or that pre-existing lore and etc is making the reasoning difficult to work with.