Ryotknife said:
Tidus from FF 10
Vaan from FF12, although he is the most tolerable of the list.
Vaan and Penelo were both naff, but that's because they were shoehorned in at the last minute to be "relatable" characters, relatable to who I don't know. A character doesn't need to be relatable to make me interested in them, (and god knows Vaan wasn't relatable or interesting) I can't relate to Balthier or Bosch, but I would've much preferred them as the main characters as was the original plan.
I mean you'll notice that most of the cutscenes that arn't involving just Vaan and another random NPC or Penelo, him or Penelo don't do or say anything, just sit on boxes because their models were stuck in at the last minute and "Sush now, the adults are talking.". I suppose he is tolerable though, just because he doesn't do or say anything most of the time.
In defence of Tidus though, he's /supposed/ to be incompetent, he's completely out of time and place, serving as an audience surrogate so the characters arn't inexplicably explaining things they should know to each other. I know Tidus is really devisive, but regardless of whether or not you like him, he serves his purpose and his arc works and flows extremely well. In fact, his naievety is exactly what causes them to defeat Sin permanently in the first place, everyone else was just resigned to what was supposed to happen, happening because that's the way it's always been. Without Tidus it would've made no sense for the characters to rebel against the status quo otherwise.
Imperioratorex Caprae said:
I see from some previous posts that people mix up the word "incompetent" to mean "I don't like them". While some folks may be whiny emo-douchebags who seem incapable of realizing they're not useless tools, they are in fact not incompetent just dumbasses. If they were incompetent, they'd be useless baggage (like at least 1/3 of every JRPG's cast).
Incompetent means not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully. None of the previous sentence applies to personality, likability, or social skills (unless said social skills actually translate into putting the rest of the cast in a bad position or get someone important killed). Being an unlikable douchebag doesn't mean someone is useless, even douchebags can be useful and good at some task.
Tidus gets mistaken for incompetent when he's really just clueless, but he can still fight. Wakka would be more along the incompetent range as he's a failed BlitzBall player and useless party companion beyond the first few areas. Its not worth spending points on his sphere grid at all.
Agred with all except Wakka. Wakkas a boss, Attack reels destroy all! Kihmari was the worst party member, I mean yeah he had Blue Magic, but everyone else had something way more useful.
DocMcCray said:
Ryotknife said:
Square Enix seems to have quite a few that fit this bill
/snip
Tidus from FF 10
Vaan from FF12, although he is the most tolerable of the list.
Lightning and Serah from the FF13 trilogy. Just...bleh. Although I thought Fang had some credibility, despite what SE did with her.
Main character in FF9, whatever his name was....
And Squall...fucking mopey emo kid.
Are we straying into "characters I don't like" or incompetence, because they're completely different things. "Incompetent Protagonists" is the thread title and the OP even describes Ash, a truely incompetent protagonist because he's bad and fails at everything he's set out to do.
Zidane, (the main character in FF9) was possibly the /most/ competent main character. And even though Squall is mopy, he was far from incompetent either.
Both are extremely competent, Zidane is master theif, who is also very good at fighting, doesn't set any bad things off through the course of the story, always pushes forward, never screws up, the only time there's a lapse, is with the whole mind control thing on Terra, which is understandable.
Squall is an extremely talented fighter, generally an icon amongst his fellow students for his prowess, an inspiring leader, and has been trained since a child to be a soldier. He literally knows nothing else except how to be a soldier. And again, he doesn't cock up in the story.
