Dragoncat Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 They worship an evil dragon god who wants to destroy the world...when villains have this as a motive, I always go wtf because destroying the world means they'll die with it. Sometimes "make a new world just for us" is added to it, that makes sense...but Grima doesn't seem to promise that to his followers. He just...wants all humans dead and gone. So why do the grimleal, a human organization, worship him when they know this? They'll bring him back to life, and he'll just kill them. Am I missing something or is this just bad writing on IS' part? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sentacotus Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Yeah its a bit crazy. I thought somewhere in a support with Gangrel or Aversa it was mentioned that Aversa and Validar essentially forced people in Plegia to worship Grima. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphi Sage Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 (edited) It's blatantly bad writing. When other characters had the motive to outright destroy the world instead of conquer or reassign its populace, it was under an actual pretense. Gharnef in FE3 wanted to go for broke after he was killed in the War of Shadows, and Medeus was mostly mindless. Sephiran believed mankind to have become intolerable after the Serenes Massacre, and his endgame overlapped with recreation. And Nergal really wanted to conquer the world as a dragon taming sorcerer, but even then was borne from a loss of memory and sanity when he gained all his power. Him summoning the dragons after his death was a kamikaze move. Here, Validar and the Grimleal just want to destroy the world because it's their role in the story. No backstory, no recreation, no "Life is pain" crap, just omnicide. Sure, one of the artbooks say that Giant Evil Dragon God #407 was going to find a new planet for the Grimleal, but that's just a complete Shark Jump. Edited March 17, 2015 by Delphi Sage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragoncat Posted March 17, 2015 Author Share Posted March 17, 2015 Yeah, I see them as a cult...that's for sure. Maybe Validar thinks he'll be spared and given power or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Cults are usually full of wackos who want to see the world burn. Real life equivalent? Satanists Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragoncat Posted March 17, 2015 Author Share Posted March 17, 2015 And there was those people who thought their masters were aliens and they would come back for them and stuff like that if they did a mass suicide. And the cult that everybody drank poisoned koolaid...don't know much about Satanism but yeah that sounds like a good analogy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knusperkeks Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I only read the first entry of this thread, so forgive me if it's been mentioned already, but: I don't understand how it's difficult to understand the grimleal. They're just another group of fanatics who follow their religion. People all around the world blow themselves up in the name of religion on a daily basis, watch the news. There isn't much of a difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IceBrand Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Isn't the lopto in FE4 the exact same thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czar_Yoshi Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Sure, one of the artbooks say that Giant Evil Dragon God #407 was going to find a new planet for the Grimleal, but that's just a complete Shark Jump. I'm not aware of any artbooks claiming Grima cares about anything except grinding bones and eating despair and whatnot. But it takes more than one dud to jump a shark (and Awakening's not necessarily a dud, it's just lacking a lot of depth. It was polished in other ways, and the amount of people who loved the story on first play (and still do, having not given too much thought to it- or even after thought, such as myself) are a testament to that). But yeah as a rule of thumb if you find a cult, they might be irrational, delusional or insane. It's totally plausible for tons of people to get swept up in a mob mentality, especially if it's state sponsored and in retaliation to aggression from an outside state (Awakening does overlook this bit though, as Plegia's most recent mass memory of Ylisse should be, according to in-game canon, Emmeryn's noble sacrifice and how bad fighting and hatred are). To quote Madagascar, "Hurry, before we all come to our senses!" Isn't the lopto in FE4 the exact same thing? Their Dark Dragon didn't want to destroy the world, he wanted to make a caste-based theocracy with him at the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphi Sage Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I'm not aware of any artbooks claiming Grima cares about anything except grinding bones and eating despair and whatnot. But it takes more than one dud to jump a shark (and Awakening's not necessarily a dud, it's just lacking a lot of depth. It was polished in other ways, and the amount of people who loved the story on first play (and still do, having not given too much thought to it- or even after thought, such as myself) are a testament to that). First, I was talking about "Giant Evil Dragon God #407 taking the Grimleal into space to find a new world after blowing up Earth" as being a shark jump. Second, there's a million games with a crap story and good gameplay. I'd rather have a game with a great story and decent to passable gameplay, like Xenoblade or MGS1. But yeah as a rule of thumb if you find a cult, they might be irrational, delusional or insane. It's totally plausible for tons of people to get swept up in a mob mentality, especially if it's state sponsored and in retaliation to aggression from an outside state (Awakening does overlook this bit though, as Plegia's most recent mass memory of Ylisse should be, according to in-game canon, Emmeryn's noble sacrifice and how bad fighting and hatred are). To quote Madagascar, "Hurry, before we all come to our senses!" That's a flimsy excuse, though. Plus, it seems ridiculous for an entire nation to go from "GRR KILL THE HOLY BIGOTS" to "Let's all practice pacifism in memory of Nyna Clone #7!" to "Living is pain, let's join a death cult!" at the drop of a hat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Laufeyson Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Exposition on the Grimleal fell into a plot hole. Honestly, there isnt much in the way of motive, OP, just an Evil Cult Of Evil For Evils. Unfortunately. Something something Naga and Grima fought in the past...i dunno. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czar_Yoshi Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Correction: it's an irrational excuse. It may not make sense from a sensible standpoint, but it still happens a lot in real life and that's a good enough reason for it to work in fiction. I still don't get how Emmeryn and Nyna are related other than both being female leaders of the main good country... Yes, they both don't want to fight, but for completely different reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IceBrand Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 (edited) I think Grima having no reasons/unkown reasons was there to increase their creepy factor. A person doing terrible things with only the most alien of reasons can be kinda unsettling. Except Grima wasn't that intimidating to be honest. Edited March 17, 2015 by Advance Gamer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czar_Yoshi Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 (edited) Someone doing terrible things for unknown (different from no) reasons is indeed unsettling. But let's look at exactly what Grima managed to accomplish: -Fought Naga in the past and lost. Big deal. -Revived Validar, who is a jerk. -Absorbed thousands of Plegians to resurrect. Considering that they're bad guys, this is a good thing. -Makes Risen run around everywhere, but all they do is kill Phila and some of her pegs (under Gangrel's command, so it's his fault) and a few suicidal Villagers. -Ruined lots of buildings in the future. If we include the Future Past DLC, he also kills Naga and Tiki, and threatens to grind Lucina's bones in a certain convo. However FP Grima acts pretty different from ingame Grima in general so I'm hesitant to lump them together (especially since he's actually possessing someone different). So overall Grima never really does anything despicable to be mysterious about. His badness is generally limited to being a jerk and passively summoning monsters who other villains use as teleporting mooks. One could say that, as the bigger bad, it's not his job to (the task should fall to Validar instead), but he's even worse at it than Grima. Edited March 17, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sentacotus Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 (edited) Even if it is just bad story writing it is possible for someone or thing to just be bad and evil with no other motive. While I certainly prefer the latter as it makes for a better story in my opinion its not like fantasy/religious figures were not just evil because that's just who they were. Sure we might not understand why someone or thing would want to destroy the world just because but that's what can also be captivating at times too. As a wise English Butler once told me...some people just want to watch the world burn. Edited March 18, 2015 by LordTaco42 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czar_Yoshi Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 If that's what Validar was after, he should have said so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragoncat Posted March 17, 2015 Author Share Posted March 17, 2015 I only read the first entry of this thread, so forgive me if it's been mentioned already, but: I don't understand how it's difficult to understand the grimleal. They're just another group of fanatics who follow their religion. People all around the world blow themselves up in the name of religion on a daily basis, watch the news. There isn't much of a difference. But the real world people you're mentioning also think they're going to go to heaven and have 72 virgin wives. Or at least that's what their leaders brainwash them into believing. Last I checked, Validar wasn't promising the grimleal any sort of reward. So yes, there is a bit of a difference...but it does bring up another thought. What if Grima really doesn't want to destroy everything, but we don't know because that wasn't explored ingame? What if the grimleal are to the Plegian religion as ISIS and groups like it are to Islam? As in, they've corrupted their religion to that point, but it wasn't that way originally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czar_Yoshi Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 But the real world people you're mentioning also think they're going to go to heaven and have 72 virgin wives. Or at least that's what their leaders brainwash them into believing. That's one specific subset of groups, not cult mentality in general. Grima having an agenda other than world destruction is a premise that would have merit for (well-written) fanfiction and other retellings of the story, but there's no way the Devs had it in mind for Awakening itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dandragon Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 However FP Grima acts pretty different from ingame Grima in general so I'm hesitant to lump them together (especially since he's actually possessing someone different). You mean FP Grima is outright better than ingame Grima? Honestly, I think the Future Past DLC did a lot of what Awakening SHOULD have done, but didn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knusperkeks Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I bought all the future past dlc and wasn't disappointed, in fact I think it's much stronger than the original plot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dandragon Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 I bought all the future past dlc and wasn't disappointed, in fact I think it's much stronger than the original plot. Like I said it's what Awakening should have been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord of Gabriel Knight Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 Probably a philosophy like nihilism where they don't see the point in life and want it to end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCProductions Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 It's kinda simple honestly, Validar, the head of the Grimleal, became king of a country. Natrually, his religion became the state religion. That, and Hot Spring Scramble and other various dialouge in game shows that worship of Grima was commonplace beforehand in Plegia. As for a plot reason for their beliefs, the majority are summed up by Validar and Aversa at the Dragon's Table (or elsewhere, not completely sure). Ylissee's victory drove people to Grima. If you need a real world equivelant to this hypocracy, then look to Lybia. Revolution fought to oust Islamic dictator Qudaffi(sorry if I butchered that spelling) only to bring in leaders who only do worse and bring in more war. For this religion's purpose, someone already pointed out Satanism, and that was my first conclusion playing this game, so I'm going with that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HF Makalov Fanboy Kai Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 (edited) well OP lets be real, nothing makes sense in awakening and nothing is explained in full detail. we gotta keep things simple for the new brand of sheep waifu fans that'll keep the glorious series alive and therefore we can say no wrong about it! with that said, anyone that it does bring into the series that also checks out the other games is super cool in my book, its not an overall bad game, but i definitely hate it. Edited March 18, 2015 by HF Makalov Fanboy Kai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IceBrand Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 well OP lets be real, nothing makes sense in awakening and nothing is explained in full detail. we gotta keep things simple for the new brand of sheep waifu fans that'll keep the glorious series alive and therefore we can say no wrong about it! with that said, anyone that it does bring into the series that also checks out the other games is super cool in my book, its not an overall bad game, but i definitely hate it. Shhhh, you've said too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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