Jotari

Oh, also to add to this is that we just sort of appear in Miletos with no continuity between castles. Which probably hurts it a bit. The only other time this happens is with Silesse and the generation skip, both of which are choreographed a lot more than an optional conversation about shopping and an off screen battle in the map intro. We don't even know how Seliph got there since there's an ocean in the way. Did he have ships? Did he appropriate Travant's wyverns from occupied Thracia and parachute all his troops in? EDIT: oh wait, it's connected to Thracia via land. I thought there was a coast all around you on the gameplay map...I still like the parachuting wyverns idea though. I said s(he) since I think social knight is a male only class while Queen, is unplayable, but surely a female exclusive.

We're actually okay on the culture front for Miletos. In fact, far better than some of the nations. We know it's a rich mercantile nation with exotic trading stuff and that it was a bunch of mostly independent city states (I think Kaga's notes say that somewhere, though I might be making it up) before the empire took over. And we know it was the site of child hunts in the original Lopt empire with massive sacrifices there and it's enduring this horror again.We even get a tidbit that Quan and Ethlyn visited there once. What we do lack for Miletos is representation (seriously no black trans women at all) and a role in the wider world. Fire Emblem nations get their characterization through three main methods. The characters from there and what aspects of the society they represent. The role they play on the war and the types of classes they usually deeply. Miletos has none of that. We have loads (okay more like a few, but far more than most countries) of small details about it's culture and history, but none of those central three. Not only are there no characters from there, but they have no agency in the conflict and don't even get enough of a face to have generic enemies or NPCs to give flavor. I contrast to Gra, which also has pathetically small representation being just Sheena and Jiol (and Mr Captain). We feel like there should be more characters from there, but, even though there's not, we still have a good grasp of how Gra feels about things and it's motivation for doing things. Even though we see zero suffering Gra commoners, I feel like that countries misery is more palpable than Miletos just because we can understand it better, have Sheena to act as a vehicle for it and actual soldier troops to identify with that work better than the child hunts, ground we've already covered in the Leinster arc. On the subject of random arena enemies and the Queen class, Indra, the Queen you fight here is also fought at the start of the previous chapter where s(he?) was a social knight. How's that for a class change! Outside of the final chapter this is the only time you fight and arena enemy with the same name. The final chapter arena enemies also retain their classes. Which makes me think someone fucked up and accidentally used the same arena name twice for two different enemies. I do wonder where she's Queen of thou? Maybe she's actually Travant's wife! Overnight! Are you insane!....that would require making a night palette!

Don't worry, I'll balance out your (actually not at all) toxic positivity with some toxic cynicism. You are absolutely right. Not only do we have access to various genres easy, we have access to world wide media, almost of all of it translated as we have the good fortune to speak the lingia franca (and probably have the knowledge to be a pirate of Netflix and the like is falling short). Not only do we have that, but we also have a hundred years worth of visual media from the past century, and several thousand years of written works from before that. If there was a complete and total ban on new content tomorrow there would still be enough high quality stuff out there to take up more than a life time's worth of consumption. And here's where the cynasicism comes in. Because all that is true. And it's also irrelevant. Because you are absolutely not going to watch the latest Iranian drama no matter how good it is. Unless you have a friend who's really into it and recommends it. And while you might read the best book sold in England in 1878, you're not going to read the second best book because only scholars with a specific interest in the period are even going to know about the second most famous stuff. We are, as we've always been, at the absolutely mercy of the capitalist system and what they want to show us. All of it is there, but you're only going to watch what's put in front of you and pushed by the algorithm and marketing titans. Which means a bit of your local stuff, a bit of Britain, and lot of America, and any noteworthy foreign language work these days will almost certainly be Japanese or Korean. I think we have all seen far too many movies that are well known to be bad, well reported to be bad and then watched and found subjectively bad, but watched anyway just because they were the trend everyone's talking about.

Oh! What! Oh no, I was, eh, talking about her, uh, Volcannon. I mean Bolganone. Yeah, that's one hot book.

Hmm...Should I confess to thinking this collection of pixels is hot or not? She's probably a few years shy of fifty if you think about it. Assuming Bloom's marriage was a result of Chapter 5 and not something that happened earlier, Ishtar is at most 17, possibly younger. And assuming Hilda was a hot young bride of about 22 when she was an eligible bachelorette, that would but her in her late 30s now. Well maybe an extra year for Gen 2 having taken place in to put her in her early 40s. Unless she was older when she married because she was putting herself through Sorceress School first or something. I think perfectly legitimate cadet family is the Occam's razor answer. She says her family is from Velthomer, like the royal family. That kind of suggests it's not the royal family. And you'd think she's either be bragging about a close family connection to Alvis or denying it completely if she were a bastard. Instead she's bragging about a loose geographical connection. I personally headcanon one of her parents are Thracian. Since for some bizarre reason they accidentally gave her Dainn holy blood in the final chapter. Hmm. How could this be fixed? I say we leave her in this chapter as normal until you seize Miletos. Throughout the chapter she's given lines suggesting she's starting to remember her past (maybe she can have a battle quote with Hilda, since those two have probably met before, even if neither might realize st first). And it all comes rushing back when she see's Julius on the battlefield. Unlike the brother she knew, but a haunting reminder of the way he looked the last time she saw him. She then leaves Miletos on her own volition because she simply has to speak to Alvis, whom she here's is at Chalphy. She has to appeal to daddy to put an end to this and stop Julius. And then things play out the same way. We get out dramatic scene and Julia falls into Manfroy's lap because he just happens to get lucky. This shifts it from Manfroy just being super naturally capable (until he isn't) to Julia being an idiot. But I think it's okay for her to take the idiot ball for this one to make the plot happen. Because even if abandoning the army to speak to Alvis is misguided and foolish, it could still be brave and a strong character beat for her, taking things into her own hands. And let's face it, Julia needs a moment like that because she is a bit fat nothing as far as characterization goes. She exists for the gameplay situation she provides for the final chapter first and foremost. And this way we only lose her for one chapter instead of two.

But Alm very much was raised as a commoner in the same way Ike was. He grew up in a tiny village without servants or feudal responsibilities. And Ike likewise is treated specially because of his connection to Greil. That's what Shinon was so pissed about.

Well he objectively does get a noble title, and then throws it away. Better question is why should anyone really care? None of us are believers in the divine right of kings and the rightful place of feudalism. Nobility literally doesn't exist (though super genes do exist in some Fire Embelm settings, not Tellius though...unless you're Micaiah). People like Ike in this regard not because he's a commoner, but because he's different from other Fire Emblem lords. But it is a bit of a misconception that he's unique or unprecedented in that regard, as he hits a lot of the same plot beats as Alm. And later Byleth too as commoner raised mercenary protagonists. It's the less common of Fire Embelm's stock character tropes, but "Seemingly ordinary guy raised by a gruff old dude of renowned martial skill with a secret origin" is one of the two Fire Emblem protagonist along with "Lordling with responsibilities". Kris even follows that archetype, minus any significant secret backstory (and we never get to see Mac Lir, sounds like a cool guy though).

Only legitimate opinions on Genealogy's artstyle are those who've played it on a 1990s CRT TV with a RCA composite connection XD

The female paladins (and princess) even get an extra weapon type.

I think that's something that definitely can be argued though. Because Greil no doubt was a noble being a general in the pre-Ashnard regime, with it specifically being noted that Ashnard made it possible for commoners to achieve such ranks ergo someone from before had to have been a noble. It's more deductive than fanfiction. But then maybe I'm exactly the kind of person who was being called out, lol.

Don't forget distinct female versions of most of those classes too. Which I don't think the previous game had for knights and cavalry (though they did for mages). And this is in a game with a relatively small pool of available units compared to other games.

I guess we can presume from that one poll, which let's not forget was significant enough to influence the game, that he was a bit of a phenomenon in the Japanese fandom. Though he certainly hasn't had much staying power. In the first CYL poll he was below Nowi, Lon'Qu and Donnel, among the more widely viewed popular Awakening characters. What's also a shame is that Asugi is a fine character all by himself. At least from what I remember. He has hang ups about his family legacy and a distaste for Saizo that doesn't rely on the Gaius character gimmick at all.

Or the age old method of combating power creep. Replace "Dragonite" with "Emblem Ike."

The intent wasn't to darken Travant's greyness. It was actually a little the opposite. The point being that he's acted so treacherous for so long that people just plain won't believe him if he tries peaceful cooperation.

I see this a lot in the A Song of Ice and Fire community. Theories built upon a foundation that's only true if a multitude of other theories are correct. It's an inevitable consequence of the writer releasing only one installment of the series in almost 20 years. Fans have over analyzed stuff so thoroughly that evolving their own fanfiction into their view of the series in lieu of any actual forward progression is the only avenue of new conversation, if nothing else. But, what I really wanted to ask is examples from the Fire Emblem series. Who, or what, or when is fan ideas being treated as fact (well aside from the very wrong headcanon that Edelgard is a good person).

It's actually pronounced Nikolaj. How to improve Chapter 9. Step 1. Have Travant be the one to propose a peace treaty right from the very start. Seliph (and idk, Shannan) wants to take him up on this, but Lewyn and especially Leif, if he's still alive, argue against it saying they can't trust Travant and that he'll renege and seize North Leinster the moment they leave the continent. At Thracia castle Areone even suggests this very idea to Travant "I see what you're doing father, the moment they're gone we'll take all of the north ourselves. Thracia will be reunited at all." To which Trvant answers "...Maybe." Step 2: Travant dies the same way. All that stuff is fine. We can add the extra line Ping wanted, and also make it clear that Areone's lines supporting treachery against the Heroes his motivating him. Not only is his daughter killed or seemingly killed, but his son is turning out like him in the worst ways. Step 3: Now, with Travant dead, Seliph can argue for peace with a still belligerent Lewyn and Leif. Step 4: Use the suggested interpretation where Areone is listening to the 99% of the time Travant and not the 1% of the time. Instead of referring to Travant's last lines as the reason for his rejection of peace, he makes a statement that he literally cannot understand what Travant was trying to tell him because it's so contrary to what he's always been told. Maybe have Julius show up earlier to observe the battle and give Areone someone he can talk to to explain his motivation (and provide some subtle threat against turning on the empire). Step 5: If Julius has to rescue Travant, then let Julius and Seliph actually talk to each other a bit. Make a moment of it instead of an out of nowhere WTF.

I guess to more clearly put what I wanted to say, would be that I wouldn't mind a huge surge in multiverse stories of they consistently engaged with and utilized the idea well.

I wouldn't say there's any individual tropes I'm sick of seeing in of themselves. And multiverse is a really good example of this. I'm sick of seeing it done poorly or for no real reason. But Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is a genuinely great movie that properly engages with it's multiverse premise to tell a genuinely heartwarming and philosophical story (fight scenes could drag on a little long though). I wouldn't want to see something like that not made just because the market is saturated.

Well... you're probably not wrong....but why in the world are you replying to a post from seven years ago that's buried in the 1380th page of a thread over 3000 pages long XD

Hey, I beat Maddening Engage before the DLC ever came out. I guess that makes me a better Fire Emblemler than you. And you've seen my Eckesachs play log, so you know how mistake prone I am!

What I like about Musar is that he actually has holy blood. Minor Forseti. This is almost certainly so he has the weapon rank to wield his Tornado tome, but it's fun to think of the story implications. Is he from Silesse? Is he a bastard brother of Lewyn? We know for sure he's not Lewyn's cousin, at least of the same generation, as neither of Lewyn's uncles have holy blood. Unless there was an unmentioned sister or something that got shipped off to be married in Grannvale. We later see some falcon knights with minor Forseti blood too, for less clear reasons, probably to give them more speed or something. EDIT: I see two other people have already commented on Musar's blood purity before me. But I'll have you know I actually had my full comment about him written out before either of you guys posted. I just had to cycle to the train station immediately before I could finish writing about Arion. Arion can certainly be a pain to deal with. One solution is to actually just not fight him and seize his castle from beneath him. And if I were on charge of things I would have made that the suggested goal, with him only surviving to reach the final chapter if you don't kill him here. Because I agree that the Julius rescue is a bit nonsensical.

Well, none of the villages in any of the chapters are marked on the intro map, only the castles are (at least in Genealogy, we get some more names in 776). And they are the ones that don't have accurate placement in relation to coastlines, or even each other.

Yeah, while it's really cool that you can put the Genealogy maps together and they make the recognizeable shape of the Jugdral continent....much less care was taken to ensure any of the castle positions reflect where they actually are in the gameplay maps. Because the spot you marked on that map corresponds to here in Chapter 7 Which...yeah, those clumps of villages are definitely not. Hell Melgen and Ulster are practically on the same line of latitude yet on the intro chapter map Ulster is quite a bit to the north. I wonder if Kaga came up with his world map first and then tried to design the chapters around that map and had to make compromises for the sake of gameplay, or if it was all gameplay first and someone just really half assed their job of designing the intro map. Funny enough, that would place you directly in the middle of a 200 year period where Valentia was dealing with a mysterious pirate nation that resulted in the dual monarchies getting the blond bond with Mila and Duma. Though I think the official Valentian timeline says the pirate nation was related to the predecessors of the Macedonians. I would absolutely love if they went to the bother of naming the parents of everyone in the first gen purely for the Augary. So many Holy Blood Nobles with only theoretically existing wives. Oh god, Hannibal must have had parents. TELL ME WHO THEY ARE MAGIC MAN!

Yeah, and if my suggestion of a parent-child money transfer idea is to be in effect, then Sharlow would naturally be entitled to get that too. Especially if they use my other idea which is to make Sharlow Hannibal's actual son. What? You really think I was going to talk about another sub and not shill that thread XD

Yeah, I should have said he's better than Hannibal, at the very least. But I think his chip healing and instant warping capabilities puts him at more useful than a lot of the substitute units and eugenics units with substitute levels of pairing quality. I guess, I could say, if one were to do an "all subs except Sylvia" run then he'd be of middling quality of contribution to the remaining two maps. Though Sharlow would still be better as innate paragon and berserk are pretty great for the unit late game healer Est is trying to be.