| abstract
| - Vaan is a lonely and introverted orphan whose parents are never seen, and his only friend is Penelo. He spends most of his time killing small creatures in the sewer and stealing from people. The death of his parents and his sad situation have not done wonders for his already questionable mental health. News of his brother Reks' death finally sends him over the edge, and he sets out on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against The Empire. His lack of personality is not due to shoddy writing, but because he is projecting all of his more interesting attributes as alternate characters, in order to distance his broken and troubled mind from his violent actions. Note that he meets most of his new allies in dangerous spots; when faced with stress and danger he can't deal with, he invents a character to deal with it.
* Gabranth does not have a twin brother. Basch is Vaan's personification of his own guilt at being unable or unwilling to serve in the army and prevent his brother's death. He looks like Gabranth, because Gabranth actually did kill Reks, but Vaan believes himself responsible. Vaan literally IS Basch Von Ronsenburg of Dalmasca.
* Balthier is Vaan's ideal self - exactly the sort of sky pirate he dreams of being. He projects pretty much everything cool or meaningful that he does onto Balthier due to an inferiority complex that forces him to deny any heroic qualities he may have. He says he's the leading man, and he means it. He didn't die when the Sky Fortress went down, because he's Vaan.
* Ashe is the personification of Vaan's patriotism. The real life Princess Ashelia died, and was probably not nearly as badass as Ashe is, because they aren't the same person. This is why she's always referred to by the nickname.
* Fran is a hybrid of all the beautiful and exotic women Vaan dreams of meeting as a sky pirate...and possibly his mother. She didn't die when the sky fortress went down, because she's Vaan. Make of that what you will, he's already pretty messed up.
* Penelo is either A. an actual human with a dangerous fascination with the antisocial thief-eunuch-boy-avenger, or B. Vaan's original imaginary friend, who becomes progressively less important as the other characters are developed in Vaan's mind. The main argument for Penelo's existence is her appearance in Tactics A2 along with Vaan, where the story is not told from Vaan's POV. You can control all of the characters directly, and to a miniscule degree, because they're extensions of Vaan's mind. This is also why all of the characters have identical license board abilities, except for Quickenings, which are chained together anyway since he's really doing all of them. His sudden badassery at the very end of the game is a result of his mind partially fixing itself since he had just slain Gabranth and avenged his brother, placing his guilt-ridden mind at ease. Vaan is actually an extremely powerful character in subsequent games, because in XII, he was an unhinged, psychotic One-Man Army for most of it. He imagined his "friends" fighting, but it was all him, possibly Penelo if she existed, and occasionally Reddas, Larsa or Vossler.
* In Dissidia, he can pull weapons from nowhere and execute awesome magical attacks, becoming one of the best characters in the game.
* In Tactics A2, he's a brilliantly competent Sky Pirate and an awesome guest character. Alternatively, one or more (or perhaps all) of the other party members were created by the Occuria to manipulate Vaan and anyone else in the party who is real (if any). It would certainly explain why they were able to interact with other characters. They could have taken on a life of their own when the Occuria gave up on their manipulations. In short, they would be sort of like low-power Espers that were mortal and weren't sealed away.
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