Wind-up Shantotto

[Enkidoh]

Technically she's a protagonist of FFXI, albeit a very minor one originally (she has a few optional quests that had the character running afoul of her vindictive nature, and she had a tiny part in one Windurst story mission. Until she got her own add on mini expansion called A Shantotto Ascension in 2010 she was pretty much nothing more than a minor npc at best. Hence I have no idea why Square Enix have suddenly become obsessed with putting her into the spotlight - there are plenty of other characters in FFXI who had far more bearing on the plot than that demented taru BLM.

[NovaUltimatum]

I have no idea why Square Enix have suddenly become obsessed with putting her into the spotlight - there are plenty of other characters in FFXI who had far more bearing on the plot than that demented taru BLM.

She won the most popular NPC competition that players voted on:

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/topics/npcenqt/

To think that one such as I should be so blessed
and invited to this party as a guest.
Yet should another have been chosen in my place
I would have cursed them to suffer death apace.

[LineageRazor]

She won the most popular NPC competition that players voted on:

Yeah, I was kinda surprise she beat out everyone's favorite legal jailbait Prishe. Glad she did, though; while a fairly minor character, Shantotto was always a hoot in the occasions when she did make an appearance.

Probably my favorite was the Aht Urhgan fight against Khimaira 13, when she totally flips out and starts nuking it with low level BLM spells for thousands of damage each.

[Nekodar]

Technically she's a protagonist of FFXI, albeit a very minor one originally (she has a few optional quests that had the character running afoul of her vindictive nature, and she had a tiny part in one Windurst story mission. Until she got her own add on mini expansion called A Shantotto Ascension in 2010 she was pretty much nothing more than a minor npc at best. Hence I have no idea why Square Enix have suddenly become obsessed with putting her into the spotlight - there are plenty of other characters in FFXI who had far more bearing on the plot than that demented taru BLM.

Shantotto had a huge following even before that mini expansion, and she figured in Treasures of Aht Urgan as well...

[Pandastirfry]

Technically she's a protagonist of FFXI, albeit a very minor one originally (she has a few optional quests that had the character running afoul of her vindictive nature, and she had a tiny part in one Windurst story mission. Until she got her own add on mini expansion called A Shantotto Ascension in 2010 she was pretty much nothing more than a minor npc at best. Hence I have no idea why Square Enix have suddenly become obsessed with putting her into the spotlight - there are plenty of other characters in FFXI who had far more bearing on the plot than that demented taru BLM.

She's a case of what I like to call the "Boba Fet Effect" it's when a minor character who does literally nothing get's some weird fan following until the the creators of the character are actually forced to to give them a back story or role to justify the fan's theories or inflated description of them. Like Boba Fet, Has 3 lines of dialogue in 2 movies does literally nothing, and dies carrying out one of the oldest Vaudeville routines of the "blind man knocking something important over", yet somehow he's become the most Bad Ass character in the Star Wars Universe, to the point where the a major plot point of the New Trilogy is devoted to him...and it's still laughably stupid.