(no subject)
So yeah, I thought I'd do this thing here about What makes Fighter tick from a couple of perspectives. And so I did. And now I'm posting it. Yeah.
Fighter and his Friends
And when I say friend, I mean, almost every single other person in whatever plane of existence he happens to be in at the time.
Fighter has a fanatical belief in the inherent goodness of others. He makes friends quickly and unilaterally; you don’t get a choice in the matter, and really, no amount of subtle or overt hinting is going to convince him that someone isn’t his friend once he’s declared them to be such. The best example of this is Black Mage, Fighter’s canon BESTEST friend in the whole wide univarse(sic).
Fighter met Black Mage after each of them got booted from their respective educational institutions. Fighter almost instantly declares them best friends, over the protests of Black Mage, who immediately and unsuccessfully tried to kill Fighter. They then set out traveling as a pair until the beginning of the canon storyline. Black Mage despises Fighter, and makes absolutely no secret of it, continually trying to kill him and occasionally succeeding, it would be hard to say that Fighter doesn’t notice it. It’s just that things that don’t fit with Fighter’s mindset get filtered out by his subconscious before they ever get to his mind. This effectively creates a 5-mile thick shield of adamantium-reinforced Naiveté. Without it, Fighter really wouldn’t be Fighter anymore.
This is important, because it’s really the only way that Fighter can remain the moral innocent that he is, and still reconcile his involvement with the Light Warriors, who, let’s face it, are a roving band of murdering, thieving, pyromaniac extortionists. And Fighter’s blindness to the actual goodness of others extends far beyond his immediate group of friends. It even extends to situations where such trust is obviously and extremely ill-advised. Fighter has divulged all the weak points of each Light Warrior to Evil Princess Sara, just because she asked him. Because Heroes always tell the truth.. He did the same thing for Garland later in the storyline, freely giving up the weak points of himself an his fellow Light Warriors. Fighter’s trust in other people is as absolute as it is misplaced, and he tends to take their words at face value. Once again, even when the lies are obvious, Fighter will trust the words of his friends. Those times when he notices the disconnect between reality in the words of a friend, he will always politely correct them. They simply must have made a mistake, because lying is bad, and friends don’t do that, right?
Fighter and Intelligence
As you can notice from the conversation with Garland there, Fighter isn’t stupid, and he’s not even completely dense. He notices everything that goes on around him, and probably understands most of it. How much of that awareness and understanding get translated into his interactions with the world really varies wildly between situations, and It’s always been a challenge for me to balance the childishly naïve Fighter with the times he’s intelligent and insightful, something I hope I’ll continue to improve on. This is especially true when it comes to Fighter and character judgments. He seems to be basically aware of the [huge] moral flaws his friends have, but with Fighter, trust in his friends and faith that what they’re doing is just seems to trump the material evidence.
As far as day to day thought processes go, Fighter's can tend to get a little... random. He's canonly a fan of Star Trek and Transformers, and I mention this only so I can tell you that he writes crossover fic with them, so you can have an idea of how his train of thought works. When it comes to real time problem solving, he doesn't get too much more coherent than that, I'm afraid. It's not that he doesn't have a good understanding of cause-effect and logic, it's just that he tends to act before he utilizes either. Also, 'cool!' tends to trump 'functional' or 'logical,' in Fighter's mind. He gets all that stuff, he's just got different priorities than the rest of the world when it comes to deciding what is or isn't a good idea.
Fighter has also shown himself to have decent intelligence in other areas as well. He was the one to figure out the mechanics of the Lefein language, for instance. Which may have something to do with the fact that he’s got a degree in indecipherable languages…. Some…how. Fighter’s also got a knack for doing the impossible. His LUCK stat must seriously be astronomically high. Fighter has managed to go to and from ‘sword town’ whilst confined on a ship in the middle of the ocean. He’s folded a portable hole into itself, something which should be impossible to do, and the doing of which actually caused a small rupture in the universe. He loves taking initiative with things and trying to help, and though he usually screws up somehow, his screwups have a decent chance of working out for the best, anyway.
Fighter and More-Than-Friends
This is a tough one. Fighter has shown signs that he actually has those kinds of thoughts towards other people, but it’s something that doesn’t come up very often. Fighter expressed being attracted to Evil Princess Sara early on, after she displayed superb swordsmanship, and there hasn't been much about it since. Generally, Fighter is even more of an innocent in this area than he is in every other respect.
Fighter’s huge amount of innocence about relationships, especially the physical aspects and homosexuality, are easy to see. He’s not the kind of person who pays attention to personal space boundaries, and there’ll probably be a lot of friendly(platonic!) touching when you’re around him. [We’re Hugging!]. Fighter doesn’t see anything wrong with this, and if you try to explain that it creeps you out or bothers you he probably won’t understand at all. This again, goes back to his huge innocence about stuff like this. See: [What does situational homosexuality mean?]. Fighter just doesn’t get it. Barring the appearance of canon to the contrary, I probably won’t ever be able to see Fighter in any romantic relationship that goes beyond a schoolboy crush. It’s easier to see him in a very innocent relationship, and canon is supportive of the possibility, once again by his interest in Sara, and in the more recent strip where he blushes when getting a kiss from White Mage.
Fighter’s personality in this area and others is another tie in to the fact that he and Black Mage exist in their canon as the polar opposites of each other. Where Black Mage enjoys killing and causing pain, Fighter just wants to help. Where Black Mage trusts no one, Fighter trusts everyone unconditionally. Where Black Mage is a realistic egoist, Fighter is an idealistic altruist. And whereas Black Mage has an on-going , desperate, and completely unsuccessful campaign to get himself laid, and Fighter still uses the phrase ‘bathing suit area’ .
Fighter and his Friends
And when I say friend, I mean, almost every single other person in whatever plane of existence he happens to be in at the time.
Fighter has a fanatical belief in the inherent goodness of others. He makes friends quickly and unilaterally; you don’t get a choice in the matter, and really, no amount of subtle or overt hinting is going to convince him that someone isn’t his friend once he’s declared them to be such. The best example of this is Black Mage, Fighter’s canon BESTEST friend in the whole wide univarse(sic).
Fighter met Black Mage after each of them got booted from their respective educational institutions. Fighter almost instantly declares them best friends, over the protests of Black Mage, who immediately and unsuccessfully tried to kill Fighter. They then set out traveling as a pair until the beginning of the canon storyline. Black Mage despises Fighter, and makes absolutely no secret of it, continually trying to kill him and occasionally succeeding, it would be hard to say that Fighter doesn’t notice it. It’s just that things that don’t fit with Fighter’s mindset get filtered out by his subconscious before they ever get to his mind. This effectively creates a 5-mile thick shield of adamantium-reinforced Naiveté. Without it, Fighter really wouldn’t be Fighter anymore.
This is important, because it’s really the only way that Fighter can remain the moral innocent that he is, and still reconcile his involvement with the Light Warriors, who, let’s face it, are a roving band of murdering, thieving, pyromaniac extortionists. And Fighter’s blindness to the actual goodness of others extends far beyond his immediate group of friends. It even extends to situations where such trust is obviously and extremely ill-advised. Fighter has divulged all the weak points of each Light Warrior to Evil Princess Sara, just because she asked him. Because Heroes always tell the truth.. He did the same thing for Garland later in the storyline, freely giving up the weak points of himself an his fellow Light Warriors. Fighter’s trust in other people is as absolute as it is misplaced, and he tends to take their words at face value. Once again, even when the lies are obvious, Fighter will trust the words of his friends. Those times when he notices the disconnect between reality in the words of a friend, he will always politely correct them. They simply must have made a mistake, because lying is bad, and friends don’t do that, right?
Fighter and Intelligence
As you can notice from the conversation with Garland there, Fighter isn’t stupid, and he’s not even completely dense. He notices everything that goes on around him, and probably understands most of it. How much of that awareness and understanding get translated into his interactions with the world really varies wildly between situations, and It’s always been a challenge for me to balance the childishly naïve Fighter with the times he’s intelligent and insightful, something I hope I’ll continue to improve on. This is especially true when it comes to Fighter and character judgments. He seems to be basically aware of the [huge] moral flaws his friends have, but with Fighter, trust in his friends and faith that what they’re doing is just seems to trump the material evidence.
As far as day to day thought processes go, Fighter's can tend to get a little... random. He's canonly a fan of Star Trek and Transformers, and I mention this only so I can tell you that he writes crossover fic with them, so you can have an idea of how his train of thought works. When it comes to real time problem solving, he doesn't get too much more coherent than that, I'm afraid. It's not that he doesn't have a good understanding of cause-effect and logic, it's just that he tends to act before he utilizes either. Also, 'cool!' tends to trump 'functional' or 'logical,' in Fighter's mind. He gets all that stuff, he's just got different priorities than the rest of the world when it comes to deciding what is or isn't a good idea.
Fighter has also shown himself to have decent intelligence in other areas as well. He was the one to figure out the mechanics of the Lefein language, for instance. Which may have something to do with the fact that he’s got a degree in indecipherable languages…. Some…how. Fighter’s also got a knack for doing the impossible. His LUCK stat must seriously be astronomically high. Fighter has managed to go to and from ‘sword town’ whilst confined on a ship in the middle of the ocean. He’s folded a portable hole into itself, something which should be impossible to do, and the doing of which actually caused a small rupture in the universe. He loves taking initiative with things and trying to help, and though he usually screws up somehow, his screwups have a decent chance of working out for the best, anyway.
Fighter and More-Than-Friends
This is a tough one. Fighter has shown signs that he actually has those kinds of thoughts towards other people, but it’s something that doesn’t come up very often. Fighter expressed being attracted to Evil Princess Sara early on, after she displayed superb swordsmanship, and there hasn't been much about it since. Generally, Fighter is even more of an innocent in this area than he is in every other respect.
Fighter’s huge amount of innocence about relationships, especially the physical aspects and homosexuality, are easy to see. He’s not the kind of person who pays attention to personal space boundaries, and there’ll probably be a lot of friendly(platonic!) touching when you’re around him. [We’re Hugging!]. Fighter doesn’t see anything wrong with this, and if you try to explain that it creeps you out or bothers you he probably won’t understand at all. This again, goes back to his huge innocence about stuff like this. See: [What does situational homosexuality mean?]. Fighter just doesn’t get it. Barring the appearance of canon to the contrary, I probably won’t ever be able to see Fighter in any romantic relationship that goes beyond a schoolboy crush. It’s easier to see him in a very innocent relationship, and canon is supportive of the possibility, once again by his interest in Sara, and in the more recent strip where he blushes when getting a kiss from White Mage.
Fighter’s personality in this area and others is another tie in to the fact that he and Black Mage exist in their canon as the polar opposites of each other. Where Black Mage enjoys killing and causing pain, Fighter just wants to help. Where Black Mage trusts no one, Fighter trusts everyone unconditionally. Where Black Mage is a realistic egoist, Fighter is an idealistic altruist. And whereas Black Mage has an on-going , desperate, and completely unsuccessful campaign to get himself laid, and Fighter still uses the phrase ‘bathing suit area’ .