@dragongirl218 submitted:

So, I’ve noticed that you guys seem to have a sort of love/hate thing with FFXII, between Fran’s ridiculous armor and the existence of great Judge armor + Vaan’s shirtlessness, but I’m surprised no one has pointed out the (personally) hilarious outfit and fate of Prince Rasler Heios Nabradia.
This is the armor he wears into battle.  You might note that it has some downplayed tropes that usually apply to sexy armor: no thigh armor (though he does have pants), random patches of exposed arm skin, and finally…that weird collarbone window.

Now, you might ask, why on Ivalice would he have a collarbone window??  Logically, I have no idea.  Hilariously though, in the opening cinematic, before you even get control of anything, he gets shot by an arrow right in that window and dies from it. Which I mostly find funny because we finally get an example of impractical “Rule of Cool/Fashion/Sexy” armor resulting in exactly the unfortunate situation you’d imagine.  Oh, and all you see of him is him marrying Princess Ashe, going into battle, and dying, which then sort of becomes (wo)Man Pain for Ashe to become a badass and reclaim her kingdom.

Also, dat weird and supposed-to-be-sexy(?) ab plate.  What is even up with that?

We definitely do have a… mixed opinion regarding designs in Final Fantasy as a whole franchise, you observed it pretty well. 

It’s quite funny to know that a major, plot-relevant death by chest window in fiction happened to a male character… Yet no-one else in the game (or the franchise) seems eager to reconsider what body parts they should always keep armored.

Somehow, outside of the realm of parody, death/damage by skimpy armor just doesn’t occur, especially not to conventionally attractive women. Wonder why…

~Ozzie