Raise your hand if you've ever had so much trouble just finding a place to work. I often wonder about most blog writers and blog readers, since many of them have trouble just trying to get a living in life. You probably get bossed by parents to find a real job, one that if you get it, will end up doing tasks for the rest of your life just to keep a steady amount of cash. That cash, of course, is gonna be expended on expenses, think about actually living at any type of shelter, the food you eat, the electricity, the air conditioning. To often be denied that ability to live is a boon for people, since some workplaces decide to change their mind on things post-haste and think of "a better candidate" when we all know that there's no such thing as "a better candidate" in almost every case. I've been living that kind of life for almost seven years at this point.
It got me to wonder about many different RPG characters, protagonist or otherwise. In every RPG game there's obviously a currency to gain money with, and lots of money to gain, most of it through just defeating enemies in battle. Now, the real-world equivalent to that is poaching (in case of monsters) or robbing (in case of humans), both of which are illegal acts in the real world. Now look at the majority of protagonists. Their jobs are pretty much moot. Most are usual adventurers or the cliche "save the world" merry bandits with no daytime job, a number are amnesiacs who won't really be doing much else besides being heroes, others just so happen to be soldiers or descendants of soldier-y people (Cloud, Cless, etc). But they all function the same way, beat up enemies in order to get money all the way until you finally beat the big bad and save everything.
It just makes me wonder, if they had any real job, they're practically not relevant as heroes, since they're pretty much forced to do the mundane while the heroes are the only ones actually doing anything. And in the cases of those who actually have such mundane jobs (Taloon/Torneko in Dragon Quest 4, Bowman in Star Ocean 2, bonus points for these two since they both have families and are married) they end up quitting their job because they found some bigger fish to catch.* Almost every other character who has some kind of employment and is not connected to royalty of any kind is usually self-employed.
Just look at the majority of Suikoden's cast members. Barely any look like they have any sort of supervisor, and end up in your entourage basically doing the same thing they've always done. Shopkeeps, entertainers, blacksmiths, innkeepers, detectives, these guys all seem self-employed and remain that way. I'm then reminded of several scenes of characters with no debts to pay (Rikimaru, L.C.Chan, Annallee, Hoi), those too poor to apparently afford anything yet try to make the most out of usually unlawful actions that get them in some small trouble, probably because they ran out of decent options. There's even a hard-to-find scene where if your characters are too poor to pay 200 bits to an innkeeper in Suikoden I (the scene involves Vincent), your characters end up working in the kitchen then. Even the early game of Suikoden II, where Pohl forces you to do menial tasks for the mercenary bosses (both of whom are self-employed themselves). As menial as it is, the fact of the matter is that I definitely can connect with a number of characters in this game. Everyone's poor to some extent, but some not only are poor, but almost are never gonna end up where they want to go and possibly get screwed overall. It's bad if no employer wants to hire you, everyone's so concerned about the most nitpicky of skills that it completely voids all chances unless you really really impress someone.
By the way, I'm obviously referring to work that seems to be what people do in real life. No way am I referring to the "jobs" in Final Fantasy games. Those are just character classes. Do they get paid for what they do? I mean, besides killing monsters of course.
*A bit iffy in those two I described though, since despite the calling of adventure, they still practically are the ones who exemplify the characteristics of the jobs they were employed to. Torneko in particular sets off to be the best arms merchant, even if it involves adventure. Bowman's case depends partly on what ending you decide to get for him.
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