Final Fantasy XIII: Is Lightning another Vaan?

[Shadow Gilgamesh]

So I'm playing through final fantasy XIII again and I noticed something that I don't think I noticed my first time through. It seems like Lightning suffers from the same "main" character problem that Vaan did in XII. She is the first character you use and is important for the early part of the game. But the narrator of the story is Vanille, and once the full party is together it seems like Snow takes the role of the leading man (much to the disappointment of many I'm sure ) and in terms of character development, once everyone is together it seems like Fang, Hope, and Vanille get most of the attention.

Lightning and Sazh seem to get shoved into the back seat, which I could see with Sazh, but the main character?
Am I the only one who thought/thinks this?

[Da_Cloud]

Well the whole problem with FFXIII is its even debatable if Lightning is the real main character. She was just the character that got put into the early trailer and was thus automatically branded as "main character". Looking at the story development of FFXIII the role of main character is better suited for Vanille. She's the catalyst for all the events that happened both before and during the game.

[Kyouku]

Well the whole problem with FFXIII is its even debatable if Lightning is the real main character. She was just the character that got put into the early trailer and was thus automatically branded as "main character". Looking at the story development of FFXIII the role of main character is better suited for Vanille. She's the catalyst for all the events that happened both before and during the game.

This person has it right. Vanille and Fang are the real center of the story. If you beat the game and see the ending you'd know. Lightning does act as a leader though, but everyone get's their moments to express themselves, as opposed to some of the previous games were it's all about the main character.