I think that Rydia's character is actually handled rather well. She's always been my favorite Final Fantasy character from the first time I played Final Fantasy IV.
Her actions in the beginning of the game echo when she returns. At the start she's a child running away from a scary man in black armor. She's lost her entire world. Her mother is gone, her town is gone, she's in the company of the man responsible for her mother's death.
Her entire world is gone. She has nothing left. For all she knows her traumatic summoning of Titan killed everyone left in the town. She very well might have killed people, in the original Mist goes from being 2 tiles wide to 1 tile wide. She literally destroyed half of her already bomb-scarred town.
The General tells Cecil to stand aside, but rather than do so and let Rydia be killed, he defends her, putting himself in danger on her behalf.
He didn't mean to kill her mother, he doesn't want forgiveness, he just wants to make things better.
So that's what Rydia does, that's who she patterns herself after. She wants to be like Cecil to defend people.
