Okay, so, basically, his entire arc is summed up as him coming to terms with Rachel's death, his part in it, letting go of the past, moving forward with the future, and all of that good stuff. The earlier you take him, the less resolved things will be which is an of fucking course moment, but is still important to keep in mind.
His compensation methods could be summed up as follows: fix what happened through any means necessary, and find the nearest lady (or cause in general) and protect the shit out of her (or cause in general). Not exactly healthy, but not as bad as it could be.
Like, with the later he's got enough of a sense of proportion that, when he had to head to South Figaro and the rest escape elsewhere, his reaction was less "No! Only I can protect Terra! She can't leave my side what if something happens???" and more like a "Whelp gotta do what I gotta do take care Terra gonna sneak in a jab at Edgar before I bail 'k done." It's not like he's a neurotic wreck who throws himself at the nearest lady in an attempt to soak up bullets for her. More like if there's a good cause he sees he'll need to be crowbarred off because he's going to find some way of protecting her.
Also has chronic hero syndrome in general. But...consider. Kefka's Tower arose. This was obviously bad. The Light of Judgment was fucking shit up. Setzer drank, Sabin went about rescuing people, Terra protected orphans, and Locke just went off because he had a good lead on Phoenix and that trumped everything else. He has his priorities, and they could be summed up as save Rachel, protect ladies, protect people in general and hero away in general, live a normal life.
The resurrection method seeking thing is the less healthy of the two compensation methods, since essentially he ended up traversing the world in search of a resurrection method. If he was a FMA character he'd definitely end up either as an alchemist or with an alchemist buddy/network of people who know alchemy/etc. And there would be a homunculus Rachel roaming around. Or...if he was from Final Fantasy X he'd rack up a lot of hours at the Farplane apologizing to Rachel. (Either that or avoiding her entirely because he can't face her. Actually, probably this. And she'd possibly end up as an Unsent because of something he did.)
The thing with Locke is that he's got these intense issues driving him forward but he's pretty good at keeping it together. He's cheerful. He jokes around. He makes friends. Unless there's a specific trigger (e.g. they all get drunk, there's an event in which they see shades of their past, he sees Rachel) he's probably not going to randomly break down weeping. He'll just be a chill dude who likes to protect people if the opportunity occurs in front of him (he's not going to roam the world in search of ladies to protect, but he'll take his chances as they come) and will have an intense interest in anything that resurrects things. Or anything that could resurrect things. The Cosmic Cube or Phoenix Force from Marvel? The Grail from Fate/? Replicas and Tales of the Abyss? All things that'll ping him. Very hard. Not enough where it's like, "Whoa, wait, chill, dude." Nor enough that he'll casually shove Steve Rogers into a woodchipper and steal the Cosmic Cube or some other artifact of great power. Dude's not evil, just really driven. But he'll have an interest in them.
Besides that...he prefers to be a treasure hunter and not a thief but he's totally a thief. If he's got the opportunity to steal shit have him steal shit, but it's gotta be a good opening as the dude sort of errs on the side of...needing a reason to steal things that isn't just he felt like it. But, if he's got a reason, he'll just go for it and strip you naked. If that makes sense. To compare him to other thieves, Yuffie would be the mad klepto of the team, Zidane and Rikku with a little more restraint (they wouldn't necessarily steal from the heroes trying to save the world, and they'd probably leave their neighbors alone in the jamjar they end up unless the neighbors are dickwads in which case...) but they'll still just go for it without shame, and Locke's more like the guy who needs to know that okay, the target's from the evil Empire...okay, he'll jack the keys and their wallet too. He needs a bit more justification. And wouldn't identify himself as a thief. And would VERY FIRMLY reject labels of that kind.
no subject
His compensation methods could be summed up as follows: fix what happened through any means necessary, and find the nearest lady (or cause in general) and protect the shit out of her (or cause in general). Not exactly healthy, but not as bad as it could be.
Like, with the later he's got enough of a sense of proportion that, when he had to head to South Figaro and the rest escape elsewhere, his reaction was less "No! Only I can protect Terra! She can't leave my side what if something happens???" and more like a "Whelp gotta do what I gotta do take care Terra gonna sneak in a jab at Edgar before I bail 'k done." It's not like he's a neurotic wreck who throws himself at the nearest lady in an attempt to soak up bullets for her. More like if there's a good cause he sees he'll need to be crowbarred off because he's going to find some way of protecting her.
Also has chronic hero syndrome in general. But...consider. Kefka's Tower arose. This was obviously bad. The Light of Judgment was fucking shit up. Setzer drank, Sabin went about rescuing people, Terra protected orphans, and Locke just went off because he had a good lead on Phoenix and that trumped everything else. He has his priorities, and they could be summed up as save Rachel, protect ladies, protect people in general and hero away in general, live a normal life.
The resurrection method seeking thing is the less healthy of the two compensation methods, since essentially he ended up traversing the world in search of a resurrection method. If he was a FMA character he'd definitely end up either as an alchemist or with an alchemist buddy/network of people who know alchemy/etc. And there would be a homunculus Rachel roaming around. Or...if he was from Final Fantasy X he'd rack up a lot of hours at the Farplane apologizing to Rachel. (Either that or avoiding her entirely because he can't face her. Actually, probably this. And she'd possibly end up as an Unsent because of something he did.)
The thing with Locke is that he's got these intense issues driving him forward but he's pretty good at keeping it together. He's cheerful. He jokes around. He makes friends. Unless there's a specific trigger (e.g. they all get drunk, there's an event in which they see shades of their past, he sees Rachel) he's probably not going to randomly break down weeping. He'll just be a chill dude who likes to protect people if the opportunity occurs in front of him (he's not going to roam the world in search of ladies to protect, but he'll take his chances as they come) and will have an intense interest in anything that resurrects things. Or anything that could resurrect things. The Cosmic Cube or Phoenix Force from Marvel? The Grail from Fate/? Replicas and Tales of the Abyss? All things that'll ping him. Very hard. Not enough where it's like, "Whoa, wait, chill, dude." Nor enough that he'll casually shove Steve Rogers into a woodchipper and steal the Cosmic Cube or some other artifact of great power. Dude's not evil, just really driven. But he'll have an interest in them.
Besides that...he prefers to be a treasure hunter and not a thief but he's totally a thief. If he's got the opportunity to steal shit have him steal shit, but it's gotta be a good opening as the dude sort of errs on the side of...needing a reason to steal things that isn't just he felt like it. But, if he's got a reason, he'll just go for it and strip you naked. If that makes sense. To compare him to other thieves, Yuffie would be the mad klepto of the team, Zidane and Rikku with a little more restraint (they wouldn't necessarily steal from the heroes trying to save the world, and they'd probably leave their neighbors alone in the jamjar they end up unless the neighbors are dickwads in which case...) but they'll still just go for it without shame, and Locke's more like the guy who needs to know that okay, the target's from the evil Empire...okay, he'll jack the keys and their wallet too. He needs a bit more justification. And wouldn't identify himself as a thief. And would VERY FIRMLY reject labels of that kind.