In fairness, Kain's problem wasn't that unrequited love made him crazy, it was the manipulative voice of an ancient evil in his head that made him crazy (Zemus, via Golbez). FWIW, I've never gotten rapey vibes from the Rosa kidnapping, even in the original version, largely because to me it was obvious that if he wasn't outright being puppeted, he totally wasn't in his right mind at the time. It'd be sort of like blaming Cloud for trying to kill Aeris in FF7. Neither dude was in control of his actions.
Stick him as party leader and watch the progression of his menu quotes in the Lunar Subterrane and it becomes a bit more obvious what was going on earlier in the game, because you see him having one half of a conversation with someone who's not physically present. It's one of the subtle details I liked about the DS version, and I think the other characters benefited from those glimpses inside their heads as well.
Re: the mass amounts of Kain love in the fandom, I suspect you might be feeling a bit of Seinfeld is Unfunny (warning for TV Tropes link!). The thing you've got to understand is that the original script and characterizations were really flat and a textbook example of a basic early 16-bit RPG script with early basic 16 bit RPG tropes. IMO Kain has such a massive fandom because in the original game he was really the only character that wasn't a typical plucky 16 bit hero. Kain was the only one with any level of nuance to him, and was pretty damned flawed compared to the others, even taking into account the headfuckery. In 2011 that sort of thing is kinda passe, especially as Final Fantasy games go, but back then it was unusual enough to make a lot of people sit up and take notice. Thus the crazy love he gets from people, including me admittedly. Without Kain, we wouldn't have characters like Seifer, Riku, etc. He was the original fucked in the head vaguely jerkass anti-hero archetype for a metric assload of Final Fantasy fangirls. Being hot and halfway masked also helped.
The DS script went a really long way toward making every character interesting, and fleshed them out a lot more (especially Cecil) which is why I think Kain doesn't necessarily stand out as much in that version. Personally I think it's a really good thing, but he's still my favorite.
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Date: 2011-02-15 09:30 am (UTC)Stick him as party leader and watch the progression of his menu quotes in the Lunar Subterrane and it becomes a bit more obvious what was going on earlier in the game, because you see him having one half of a conversation with someone who's not physically present. It's one of the subtle details I liked about the DS version, and I think the other characters benefited from those glimpses inside their heads as well.
Re: the mass amounts of Kain love in the fandom, I suspect you might be feeling a bit of Seinfeld is Unfunny (warning for TV Tropes link!). The thing you've got to understand is that the original script and characterizations were really flat and a textbook example of a basic early 16-bit RPG script with early basic 16 bit RPG tropes. IMO Kain has such a massive fandom because in the original game he was really the only character that wasn't a typical plucky 16 bit hero. Kain was the only one with any level of nuance to him, and was pretty damned flawed compared to the others, even taking into account the headfuckery. In 2011 that sort of thing is kinda passe, especially as Final Fantasy games go, but back then it was unusual enough to make a lot of people sit up and take notice. Thus the crazy love he gets from people, including me admittedly. Without Kain, we wouldn't have characters like Seifer, Riku, etc. He was the original fucked in the head vaguely jerkass anti-hero archetype for a metric assload of Final Fantasy fangirls. Being hot and halfway masked also helped.
The DS script went a really long way toward making every character interesting, and fleshed them out a lot more (especially Cecil) which is why I think Kain doesn't necessarily stand out as much in that version. Personally I think it's a really good thing, but he's still my favorite.