Quote Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams View Post
Nothing that I have said is sexist, no matter how much you are eager to throw around the term. We didn't need another "wow she's so strong and cool" sort of party member, both FFXIV and modern media in general is oversaturated with this sort of thing and it's exhausting.
anime and things heavily derived from anime tropes, archetypes, story structure etc... do tend to have "strong and cool" as a popular character archetype, it's not that out of place tbqh. there's a boatload of male characters one could ascribe those same traits to, in the same game, as well; if we're willing to boil them down to their constituent parts.

zero has, also, only existed for one segment of story and despite how one may subjectively feel about the presentation of character, it does fit her narrative for where she's come from and what she's known so far. subjectively you can hold whichever opinion you want to hold, but to frame it as objectivity borne from anecdotal data is farcical.

there's a lot left unwritten for her character, and i feel like it's premature to make snap judgments without the actual character's journey and narrative leaving the intro page. good faith analysis requires more of the narrative to unfold, to where the direction, theming and characterization actually... exist.

that said, i also find the "endearing, sympathetic" woman archetype is far more overused and trite as a base concept due to the saturation of it in media at this point in time (and, heavily in the past). and that's an opinion of equal subjective value to your own. the phone notes app thing in the op didn't really sell me on your alternative, as it's just a different common flavor you prefer in contrast to me.

can se write her poorly? well, yeah. there's a bunch of things in game i consider poor either in lapse of judgment, failure of due diligence to responsibly research the stories they may derive other story beats from, patterns of story-telling that feel out of place and one-sided in application and so on and so forth. do i hope they manage to write her well? of course. time will tell.