Favorite XII character?

Mine is Vaan.

Personally, Balthier. There really is very little to dislike about the character, especially when you start finding out some of his backstory, most compelling character in the game, with Fran coming in a close second. I really wish they'd done more with the character development, though. Vaan and Penelo were just so devoid of personality.

Like I've always said, Vaan could completely disappear and nobody would care. He's the worst main character in any FF game, in my opinion. Ashe is more like the main character in FFXII.

Protagonists in order of story importance:
Ashelia
Larsa
Balthier
Basch
Ondore
Vossler
Fran
Penelo
Vaan

I liked Vaan. He was the Final Fantasy equivalent of Link. A protagonist who serves the purpose of avatar within the game world. Granted, he was barely developed, and had little importance to the story after Ashe joined the party, but he had an important role beyond just dialogue.

On top of that, stat-wise, he's the best character in the game.

In the interest of the plot however, a part of me wishes Square had stuck with their original plan of Basch being the protagonist. It would have made the rivalry with Gabranth a lot more nuclear to the game's story, and it would have brought back a strong, masculine role to the Final Fantasy hero. Apparently, the development team chose to boot Basch because the last game they designed (Vagrant Story) featured a strong, masculine lead and it sold poorly. Nevermind that just about every gameplay system was ridiculously complex, therefore scaring away 90% of potential buyers. It was definitely the fact that they had a tough guy in the lead role that crushed the game's sales...