Jump to content

Ike's FE Megathread {15.5}


Integrity
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hello, SF Blog!

You may be shocked, offended, confused, or a hundred other emotions, seeing me, Integrity, posting with capital letters and sentence case. Be not afraid. It will only happen in this thread, I swear.

Anyway, spring semester's over. I'm only taking one class over the summer, plus my regular research work, so I've found myself deciding to do a thing I've been meaning to do for a long time. Basically, I talk a lot of shit about Fire Emblem's stories as a whole, doubly so since I played Conquest. I can be insufferable about it sometimes, which might actually be ironic, considering that I'm a moderator on a Fire Emblem fan site. I'll have to check up on that.

It's time I started writing checks my ass can cash. I'm going to go through many Fire Emblems, sequentially, and do my engineering best to explain why I talk so much shit about their stories.

I'm not going to go into it assuming they're garbage, except for very specific instances! This isn't intended to be a hate-fest, which brings me to my disclaimer: just because something is bad doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. As of writing, my avatar and signature are both of a K-pop singer, one of the lead vocalists of Apink, one of the least innovative bands I can think of. Their music is objectively really derivative, but I still love it. As of your reading, my avatar/sig are probably still something K-pop. I support Perth Glory FC. It's sometimes a hard logical leap to make (look at any argument about units in Fire Emblem) but just because a thing is bad does not mean it's wrong to like it. Charm is hard to quantify.

So what's the format, Ike?

Screenshots. The focus will be on my commentary, with transcripts of the story to support. I'm not one of those absolute shitheads that quotes the Bible out of context - I'm a good Christian - so I'm not going to do it for Fire Emblem either. The entire mandatory text of the game will be considered, and context does matter. I will be taking various screenshots of gameplay either to talk about when Fire Emblem's map/game design is particularly good or bad, or to spruce up a soliloquy from me, but I'm not going to be screenshotting every level-up or boss fight or whatever. That's not the point.

Sounds like you want a soapbox, you cynical fucker.

Agreed, frankly. All of my debates with people about why I think Fire Emblem's stories are bad come from a position of me half-remembering the stories of games I haven't actually played in years. I don't think I've completed a pre-13 Fire Emblem since Awakening launched. Furthermore, I have a bad habit of speaking entirely from impressions and emotions and not from anything concrete (I'm pretty sure that actually is ironic considering my degree and job), so this will serve to force me to solidify whatever bitching I want to do. Plus, it's creative.

Which ones will it be, then?

We're going to start with FE4. The ones before that either have remakes (FE1/3) or don't have a story (FE2). Plus, I already did a LP of FE2 somewhere as a younger Integrity, and I'm already going to be retreading FE5. Plus plus, I don't want to torture myself with NES - it's already hard enough to do GBA (let alone SNES) after the DS/3DS ones. I'll do each Fire Emblem after that in sequence until I run out of steam or Fire Emblems. The plan now is to stop after FE12, but I'm fully willing to pick apart FE13, my favorite, and I'd love to move on to pick FE14 apart.

How about difficulties?

I'll be going with whatever I'd ordinarily play on the game. Most games, it'll be Hard, but there's exceptions; FE10 I'll probably write an essay about why Hard in that game is a terrible difficulty and do Normal instead, for instance. Again, the focus isn't on gameplay, but I still want to be entertained between bouts of writing a hell of a lot about anime video game stories.

So it's just you talking shit about video games?

Nope! I'll be enlisting wonderful SF.net members Specta (an English major) and Knight of Argentum (a nerd) to help me explain things occasionally. I might bring other people in, depending on how I feel. I haven't planned this all the way through.

Okay, Ike, what's the flight plan?

Updates are going to be sparse initially while I figure out exactly how much effort it's going to take to gather my thoughts. I'm aiming for at least once a week to begin, I'll probably ramp it up to two to three times a week depending on interest and time commitment over the summer, and dial it back if this is still going after my birthday in August, since the next semester is going to start up. I'll be a PhD student!

What's our role as thread readers?

Basically nothing. I'll take requests to use any units, no matter how bad they are, because I'm actually really good at video games (and strategy/tactics games in particular) despite the things I say. Feel free to provide commentary or supporting remarks, I'm exercising my moderating powers to relax spam rules for this thread, as long as you're not obnoxious.

Will you-

Yes, I'll use Wendy.

I'm creating this thread now to lock my broke ass into it. I've got some logistics to sift through, a final to distribute/proctor tomorrow, and that same final to grade, before I actually get around to making the first update to this.

Let the games begin! Maybe I'll find a new appreciation for Fire Emblem out of this. Maybe it will drive me to retire...

[spoiler=table of contents]Preamble: Conversations (post #14)

4.P: Arvis (post #36)

4.1: Verdane (post #61)

4.2.1: Raquesis (post #101)

4.2.2: Pursuit (post #144)

4.3: Eldigan (post #184)

4.4: Unthinkable (post #209)

4.5.1: Slaydar (post #231)

4.5.2: Ayra (post #244)

Intermission: Translation (post #259)

4.6: Oops (post #284)

4.7: Jeanne (post #322)

4.8: Substitutes (post #339)

4.9: Altenna (post #360)

4.10: Arvis (post #373)

4.F: Fuck you, Lewyn (posts #388 & 389)

Intermission: Characters (post #444)

5.1: Leif (post #463)

5.2: Cedric (post #516)

5.3: EliteqSVBnに (post #552)

5.4: Escape (post #578)

5.5: Approach to Tahra (post #599)

5.6: Approach to Tahra II: Still Approachin'

Edited by Integrity
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 653
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I look forward to possibly fighting you or agreeing in such a violent way that it looks like fighting about things Integrity

edit: I hope you make it to Conquest because I have Many Words for that one

Edited by Specta
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Literary analysis of Fire Emblem? I'm signing on! I've always liked literary analysis, and I've never seen someone do it word-for-word for Fire Emblem. Here's to a good analysis, and a thread that doesn't die as fast as it started!

*Clinks class of fancy champagne that I got from somewhere*

Edited by TheMoniker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright, I hope you get further in FE4 than I could. And have fun with Thracia~!

i've already beaten all these games, dozens of times in fe4's case, and i even did a VLP of thracia a few years back

Unit requests:

FE4:Ardan

FE5:Dalsin

FE6:Gonzalez

FE7:Bartre(maybe Karla too)

FE8:Ewan

FE9:Sothe

FE10:Meg

FE11:Vyland(if anyone can make him viable, it's probably you.)

FE12:Yubello

ain't sourcing requests for all the games ahead of time, mate. you're way ahead of me.

Who is going to get the first Knight Crest in FE6? This needs to be answered.

dunno

EDIT: to clarify: i'm playing these games like i ordinarily would, which is to say units who treat me good will be used and units who treat me bad will be dropped. you guys will have opportunities to have me give units a try, but if they treat me bad (or they're characters i don't like, natch) there's no promises.

Edited by Integrity
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright, sluts, strap your shit in for some words.

What Purpose Do Conversations Serve?

If you’re still reading this thread, that tells me that you are fully ready to have my opinions awkwardly forced on you – and you’re in luck. Between games, and here at the beginning, I’m going to type up actual damn essay posts on topics that I think will either explain my viewpoints better to you or bring up something very relevant to the previous or next game. Topics will generally either be about broad gameplay topics or broad literary topics – Fire Emblem tries to be a fusion of both, so we’re going to treat it as such. Today’s topic is about conversations. Fire Emblem’s plot and characterization both come almost exclusively from dialogue; the games also have varying degrees of inter-mission narrative talk, but that’s by far the minority compared to the dialogue of all games besides maybe Shadow Dragon. Now, clearly, not every conversation in real life really has a purpose. Conversations are organic, after all, being interactions between people. However, a narrative is a constructed thing, and elements of a constructed thing should have purpose.

Think of it this way: fiction is chock-full of meaningful names. Batman’s Riddler is literally named E. Nygma. He was born with that name. There’s a family in Gundam Wing surnamed Peacecraft; can you guess their stance on fighting? Remus Lupin is, surprise, a werewolf. It’s not always cringeworthily obvious, of course. A Clockwork Orange has Alex, who isn’t ever called to as Alexander the Great, but there are definitely a lot of parallels to be made as the book opens. The HAL in HAL-9000 is one letter shifted from IBM, a thing Harudoku just taught me as I’m writing this. When you see names like this in real life, you think about what tryhards the parents are, just like when you see people named Sephiroth in your online games, but in fiction they’re not commented on and/or are pretty good predictors of the character’s behavior, be it their hidden past, their future betrayal, or just their personality. My name is Isaac (“he-who-laughs”) and the name isn’t either ironic (I’m an uncaring asshole) or unironic (I’m a jolly fellow). It’s just a name. In fiction, there’s a fair chance I’d deliberately be constructed as one of those two archetypes, if the creator knew the etymology of the name and didn’t just pick it because it sounded good. To bring it back to the point, constructed things necessarily have purpose, and conversations are no exception to this. The way I look at it, you can loosely classify these purposes into three categories: character exploration, plot building, and mood setting.

Character exploration is what you’re probably thinking by default when you think of conversations. Having two (or more) people talk is a very good way to explore their characters, or even to develop them, a thing we’ll have a whole extra essay post on later. Any visual media almost relies on this for character definition – it’s really hard to define a character using purely visual cues without being really heavy-handed about it, and dialogue is more natural than monologue for any character besides a primary viewpoint character. Plus, there’s a hell of a ton of subtlety in language, and particularly in the English language, which leads to heavy potential for nuance in character dialogue. There’s a good reason that we use it for this a lot. Examples are plentiful in any media: just imagine any conversation between two characters where you’re learning about one of the characters involved, or when a character is learning why their decisions or viewpoints need corrected. All of that said, exploration is sometimes (and development is usually) better done through actions, not words, but a conversation can include those actions as well.

That brings us to plot building. Any time a messenger rushes to your throne room to deliver their last hushed warning before they die, that’s plot building through conversation. Generally bad works have this happen by getting the hero (or a surrogate viewpoint character) trapped somehow by the villain, so that the villain can outline the next step of their horrible plot (which the hero will either stop or fail to stop but overcome the consequences of) or talk about all of the improbable gambits they played to get to this point. In video games, you’ll know really bad versions of this as plot dumps – your eyes glaze over as Thisman talks to you about everything going on in the Goddamn world. You can’t mash A fast enough. Good versions of this are generally one or both of subtle or concise, and take many forms. A pair of guards in Dishonored chat about the ongoing plot as you sneak by not killing them, dropping little nuggets of information you might not know. A friend in Stardew Valley drops by to tell you how the war against Not Wal Mart is going. It’s a quick conversation, but you’re up to date now, and maybe you’ve learned about an intriguing little twist the story is taking. Sometimes, too, it’s just conversation that should be happening because plot is happening; beleaguered defenders greeting the cavalry as they charge through heroically, a brief chat between the garrison commander and Ms. Hero General just makes sense to happen rather than the cavalry charging wordlessly through to save the day.

“But Ike,” you say, “sometimes conversations are just inane banter!” It’s true, especially in real life – sometimes conversations don’t really have a point. In a good work of fiction, though, the inane conversations should also have a point, even if it’s subtle. Very rarely, it will be some subtle foreshadowing of the plot (#2). Fairly often, it will be character exploration; hidden between these lines of meaningless words are the characters themselves, and you the reader/viewer/player are going to get a better feel for their personalities from this, maybe to make their sudden yet inevitable betrayal sting all the harder. A lot of the time, though, a conversation can serve no purpose but simple mood setting, which is still very important. Any decent RPG has a pre-climactic “chat with your party” setting, where the mood is pretty stark (look how fucked shit is right now) depending on the game; think the campsite on approach to Zanarkand, or Radiant Dawn’s base sequence right before Part 4 Endgame begins. Sometimes you get a little plot exposition in these, sometimes you get a little character exploration, but a lot of the time it’s just mood setting; people are nervous, people are putting brave faces on, people are trying to comfort others.

Obviously, just like everything, there are exceptions, and you may want to add another whole category of conversations to this, but this is my rough division and I want to talk about it so thoroughly because I’m going to refer back to these categories as I’m talking about the ambient conversations in Fire Emblem, driven so heavily by them. This isn’t the only metric I’ll be using when judging things, but it’s a very important one and a very subjective one so I want to make sure that you understand how I think, irregardless of whether you think the same way, which you probably don’t.

With that preamble out of the way, excelsior! I’m making progress on reading Genealogy and making comments (I have a growing folder full of folders full of word documents right now, including one called THE PLAN) so hopefully I’ll be able to get the prologue up this weekend. This is starting to sound less and less like a bad idea!

EDIT: okay fixed

Edited by Integrity
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Generally bad works have this happen by getting the hero (or a surrogate viewpoint character) trapped somehow by the villain, so that the villain can outline the next step of their horrible plot (which the hero will either stop or fail to stop but overcome the consequences of) or talk about all of the improbable gambits they played to get to this point."

you were thinking about the Flash when you were writing this weren't you

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Generally bad works have this happen by getting the hero (or a surrogate viewpoint character) trapped somehow by the villain, so that the villain can outline the next step of their horrible plot (which the hero will either stop or fail to stop but overcome the consequences of) or talk about all of the improbable gambits they played to get to this point."

you were thinking about the Flash when you were writing this weren't you

maybe, but counterpoint, maybe shut up

Link to comment
Share on other sites

fuck Wendy

you better use Meg once you get around to FE10

Didn't know Wendy was your type. :P:

You're gonna play FE like how I normally do - cooperate and stay, flip me off and get benched. This is gonna be really cool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Didn't know Wendy was your type. :P:

You're gonna play FE like how I normally do - cooperate and stay, flip me off and get benched. This is gonna be really cool.

What?! I hate Wendy!

I hate her cool, pink armor!

I hate how, even though she's a terrible unit, she tries so hard to surpass the other knights!

I hate how admirable that is!

I hate how cute her pink hair is, and how adorable her face is!

I hate how the thought of kissing her gives me butterflies in my stomach!

AAAAAAAAAAA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will gladly follow this for sure. I think it will be a little bit crazy though once you get to the newer games, especially the Avatar games.

I'm not even sure how you will handle the brigade of Poor Character Development from Radiant Dawn or half of The Generic Cast from Thracia 776 though. (mostly due to being no supports nor a lot of conversations in Thracia)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will gladly follow this for sure. I think it will be a little bit crazy though once you get to the newer games, especially the Avatar games.

I'm not even sure how you will handle the brigade of Poor Character Development from Radiant Dawn or half of The Generic Cast from Thracia 776 though. (mostly due to being no supports nor a lot of conversations in Thracia)

probably the way he defined in the introduction to the topic

thracia and radiant dawn, however, have lots of other issues to talk about, so i doubt there will be a lack of substance on those fronts

Edited by Knight of Argentum
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...