Video Tharja: How Awakening Made a Good, Bad Character. [Fire Emblem: Support Science #14]

[Rend Keaven]

Your video didn't change my Opinion on Nyx to a large extent, but it did made me think more about how much of a better character she could of been if she wasn't in Fates.

Also I don't know if you take requests, but can you make a support video on Azama? He is an asshole but I find him to be one of the most well written characters in Fates.

[Elieson]

After watching your vid and reading up on supports, i feel like your initial description of "AMAZING" is either a bit biased or a bit exaggerated. I won't dive into spoiler territory with specifics but i feel like the majority of her male supports show a similar element of forgiveness while a majority of her female supports display elements of friendship. It feels too generic...too easy...it's like a kid who doesnt want to eat fish sticks because "it's yucky" without having tried it since they were two, then they finally give into the pestering and find that fish sticks aren't all thay bad.

Sure, i was pleasantly surprised with the analysis of supports that i honestly never gave the time or effort to analyze until now, but the most interesting aspects of her supports cover her back story by laying out vague descriptions of her past, and she doesn't really give out information or make much of an effort with anyone unless she is poked and prodded for it, meaning that Nyx never has that support with someone that feels comfortable and natural. Every support starts with someone coming up to her and the same ol reaction, which eventually leads to the wall breaking and some reveal tidbit, then the S-rank normality if it applies.

I liked her Charlotte support because it dragged a lot of info out in a short amount of time, but it, like others, never read to me as comfortable. It read as acceptance, which implies that for all of Nyx's supports, she really is just this shamed psychomasochistic loner with a guilty conscience.

Like i said, i like where this went, but it was a predictable string of supports with the mystery being "how does <X> get her to let her guard down." I never saw Nyx feel that natural "i want to talk to <X>" or "<X> seems like someone worth confiding in, first.". I'd call them surprisingly nice, pleasant, or overall pretty good, but not AMAZING.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Elieson

[NekoKnight]

On 1/15/2017 at 8:01 AM, Elieson said:

Like i said, i like where this went, but it was a predictable string of supports with the mystery being "how does <X> get her to let her guard down." I never saw Nyx feel that natural "i want to talk to <X>" or "<X> seems like someone worth confiding in, first.". I'd call them surprisingly nice, pleasant, or overall pretty good, but not AMAZING.

I think Nyx is a character who would work a lot better in the GBA era when people had limited support pools. A lot of her supports are going to tread familiar ground because IS requires that she talks to every male (plus some girls) in the army.

[ghast]

Hey folks! Back again with another Support Science!

Here, I take a step back from Fates and breakdown one of my Favs from FE6: Yoder. Please enjoy!

 

[NekoKnight]

Hmm, not a bad video, although the limited support pools means there isn't as much material to analyze or repetitive bullshit to wade through. I definitely think the cast is strong to have a variety of ages, not just the 15-25 crowd. For Yoder/Yodel, I can appreciate that even though he is old and wizened, filling a mentor role to several characters, he has other dimensions to his character as well, such as his past with Niime.

[qwernst]

Yoder has some good supports, with Dorothy being my favorite.

[Thane]

I'm a sucker for supports with characters who share a past, especially if it's not immediately obvious that they had had business with each other before. That's why I really like the bittersweet tone in Niime and Yodel's support.

[ghast]

The Niime and Yoder support made me sad when I realized what was going on :(

poor guy.

[ping]

Thanks for the video, ghast! I like the old mentor archetype quite a lot, but for some reason, I never really thought about Yoder's supports. He comes too late in the game for me to bother building them up ingame, and I think the only ones I've read on SF are those with Saul and Dorothy. It's nice to discover something new (and interesting) about the game.

[Eilanzer]

My problem with Yoder and a LOT of characters in FE´s is that they come too late in the game, and at that point you already has your party made and cozy at home =/

I don´t know what the future FE games can do about that tough...(radiant dawn was THE worst for me because of that)

[ghast]

BANG BANG.

Really proud of this one. Big thanks to Thane and Neko Knight for helping me create this one.

Likes and shares much appreciated!

[Extrasolar]

This video. Yes.

I have been living and breathing "Xander is an amazing character screwed over by the awful writing of the main story/stories" since I first completed Fates. I completely agree that support Xander is the best Xander (and his supports with his siblings are amazing, with his supports with Corrin being the best). Xander is the best big brother, no competition...as long as you're only looking at supports.

Xander's writing in the main story was honestly insulting at points, especially for such a great character. It's downright frustrating just how hypocritical he came off as a lot of the time. Hello, "Morally Upright Paladin(TM) who averts the whole "cold and uncaring justice freak" stereotype of paladins by being extremely compassionate and caring...who kowtows to a clearly evil madman despite saying that he's now brave enough to stand up to and challenge his insane decisions, and is nothing but his tool and attack dog the entire time."

Sigh. Rest in peace, what should have been the best character in the game...

Edited March 21, 2017 by Extrasolar

[Dragrath]

12 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

This video. Yes.

I have been living and breathing "Xander is an amazing character screwed over by the awful writing of the main story/stories" since I first completed Fates. I completely agree that support Xander is the best Xander (and his supports with his siblings are amazing, with his supports with Corrin being the best). Xander is the best big brother, no competition...as long as you're only looking at supports.

Xander's writing in the main story was honestly insulting at points, especially for such a great character. It's downright frustrating just how hypocritical he came off as a lot of the time. Hello, "Morally Upright Paladin(TM) who averts the whole "cold and uncaring justice freak" stereotype of paladins by being extremely compassionate and caring...who kowtows to a clearly evil madman despite saying that he's now brave enough to stand up to and challenge his insane decisions, and is nothing but his tool and attack dog the entire time."

Sigh. Rest in peace, what should have been the best character in the game...

Yeah he is a huge non-sequitur I kinda feel they have a disconnect between the writers I feel different people wrote the supports and the... abomination of the story.

Though this is a bigger issue in the game in total it is a mess... It is like different parts of the games were handled by people that didn't talk to each other... >_< From the get go... The result is what can only be described as borderline personality disorder mess... It is like the story team just... didn't pay attention and half assed some crap together to... well  I have no idea.

Overall it feels like fates was a series of bullet points story wise for most of development and they at the last minute tried to put the jumbled mess together and never looked at the supports whatsoever in a rush to get the game out... Sorry if this rambled but basically I have do idea what IS was doing but they certainly come across as incompetent at least with regards to story.

The whole story literally feels like it was a complete afterthought with no quality control or real development done by someone with little to no knowledge of the other parts of the game...

[Augestein]

1 hour ago, Dragrath said:

Yeah he is a huge non-sequitur I kinda feel they have a disconnect between the writers I feel different people wrote the supports and the... abomination of the story.

Though this is a bigger issue in the game in total it is a mess... It is like different parts of the games were handled by people that didn't talk to each other... >_< From the get go... The result is what can only be described as borderline personality disorder mess... It is like the story team just... didn't pay attention and half assed some crap together to... well  I have no idea.

Overall it feels like fates was a series of bullet points story wise for most of development and they at the last minute tried to put the jumbled mess together and never looked at the supports whatsoever in a rush to get the game out... Sorry if this rambled but basically I have do idea what IS was doing but they certainly come across as incompetent at least with regards to story.

The whole story literally feels like it was a complete afterthought with no quality control or real development done by someone with little to no knowledge of the other parts of the game...

This. The problem with Xander is that it doesn't even feel like he's necessarily stupid, so much as the plot is dictating that he MUST do certain things to allow for certain events to happen. Xander is probably the one of the most obvious examples because he's so frequently present in the routes, but this nonsense is actually all over the place. You have things like Birthright with Ryoma just disappearing, Takumi in Conquest's death speech which contradicts how he initially behaves in Birthright (if he always wanted to be close to Corrin, then why is his initial behavior towards Corrin so harsh?), Corrin being sorta braindead over Silas depending on the route (seriously, this makes absolutely no sense), Azura refusing to open her yap about things considering that her only objective is to quite literally tell people about a certain kingdom so that Nohr and Hoshido don't fight. 

"No quality control" or "poor management" sounds like an accurate enough statement. 

[Refa]

1 hour ago, Augestein said:

Takumi in Conquest's death speech which contradicts how he initially behaves in Birthright (if he always wanted to be close to Corrin, then why is his initial behavior towards Corrin so harsh?),

Because he sucks at expressing himself?  There are definitely issues with his portrayal at the end of Conquest, but what you're complaining about is something that real people do.

[Troykv]

I can't avoid see Xander as a hypocrite.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Troykv

[Augestein]

10 minutes ago, Refa said:

Because he sucks at expressing himself?  There are definitely issues with his portrayal at the end of Conquest, but what you're complaining about is something that real people do.

Yeah, and people can be hypothetical like xander. The issue is that his behavior in Revelations and birthright demonstrates justifiable distrust against corrin. Conquest turns around and has takumi state he always wanted to be close to corrin yet the two routes he has the opportunity to, he doesn't get very close to corrin in cutscenes. 

It's not as obnoxious as azura, xander, and ryoma, but it's there.

[ping]

I've just started watching the video and I might edit in some more comments (in more than half an hour, holy shit), but I appreciate the paler color scheme on Plot!Xander at around 1:40 in the video. Relatively simple, but quite clever. :D

--

€: And that's even just part one. Jesus Christ, ghast. :o

Anyway, Xander might already be the most frustrating Camus character in the series without the contrast with his support self. To be honest, I'm rather sceptical towards the Camus archetype as whole, because the always present dissonance of the noble, caring, intelligent, beautiful, likable, [...] fellow either blindly or willingly follow the comically evil Big Bad of the game is usually at least a bit off-putting. But Xander in BR doesn't even have those redeeming scenes - he's basically just a pawn to Garon, yet the game stubbornly tries to convince us that he's actually totally awesome.

And about his death scene - no, that's not even karma. I can't see Xander's behaviour after Elise's death as anything else than the most asshole way to commit suicide possible. He gets what he wants (death - be it because he thinks he deserves it or because he doesn't want to take responsibility for his fuck-ups) and on the way out traumatizes his little brother/sister one final time.

About Support!Xander: I'm going to add Xander/F!Corrin to my list of supports that would work really well if they had just removed the S support with no additional changes.

Edited March 22, 2017 by ping

[Extrasolar]

9 hours ago, Dragrath said:

The result is what can only be described as borderline personality disorder mess... It is like the story team just... didn't pay attention and half assed some crap together to... well  I have no idea.

Seriously. There must have been some serious disconnect there. Were the support-writing department and story-writing department not talking to each other or something? Seems like something the director should have ironed out before the game shipped...

5 hours ago, Augestein said:

Yeah, and people can be hypothetical like xander. The issue is that his behavior in Revelations and birthright demonstrates justifiable distrust against corrin. Conquest turns around and has takumi state he always wanted to be close to corrin yet the two routes he has the opportunity to, he doesn't get very close to corrin in cutscenes. 

I can definitely see why this would be a frustrating thing for some, but personally, I saw it as evidence of Takumi being emotionally screwed. He has a hard time showing much of anyone affection, because he's afraid of being hurt or thought less of. I can totally believe that he'd be putting on an act of distrusting Corrin in order to "test" their loyalty before letting down his own defenses, unlike his other siblings' being overjoyed at Corrin's return (if only a temporary one, should they be on the Revelation or Conquest path). The guy is insecure as hell. He only drops all pretense at the end of Conquest because he's dead, and there's no more need to keep pretending.

Just how I always saw it.

3 hours ago, ping said:

But Xander in BR doesn't even have those redeeming scenes - he's basically just a pawn to Garon, yet the game stubbornly tries to convince us that he's actually totally awesome.

I wouldn't even just limit it to Birthright Xander. Conquest Xander, imo, doesn't have any "redeeming scenes" in the story; he's much of the same, if not worse, considering we get more time with him completely contradicting the things he says in his supports.

Just going off of every single contradictory thing we get about Xander, he comes off as a lying hypocrite who talks out of his ass to make himself look good, while doing the exact opposite in practice. "Oh yeah, I'm totally morally upright and strict...now excuse me while I go slaughter some innocent Hoshidans because Dad might start showing me affection again," "Oh yeah, I'm totally brave enough to stand up to Father's crazier or more violent decisions...Now excuse me while I go attack the person who's supposed to be closest to me under his orders." Or, "Don't be afraid to challenge me and speak your mind Leo...now shut the hell up about how Father's condition is getting worse." Or, "Yeah, my family is the most important thing to me, even moreso than the war... Now I'm going to ignore my dead little sister's (dead by my hand, btw) dying wish and attack the closest sibling I have anyway."

Just...argh.

3 hours ago, ping said:

Anyway, Xander might already be the most frustrating Camus character in the series without the contrast with his support self. To be honest, I'm rather sceptical towards the Camus archetype as whole, because the always present dissonance of the noble, caring, intelligent, beautiful, likable, [...] fellow either blindly or willingly follow the comically evil Big Bad of the game is usually at least a bit off-putting.

Yeah, someone in the comments of the video tried to bring up the fact that Xander is a Camus character as a defense for his inconsistent writing...except, while you can say other Camii are stupid in their being slavishly loyal to an asshole, at least other Camii are consistently written.

At no point does Eldigan, for example, tell Sigurd, "Oh yeah, sure, I may have sworn fealty to Shagall, but I'm not just going to blindly follow everything he says..." only to blindly hollow everything he says in-game. Eldigan's Lawful Stupid through and through, without any of the Xander inconsistency. Same deal with Camus himself. If anything, that makes them far better characters, if only by virtue of consistency.

[Augestein]

5 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

I can definitely see why this would be a frustrating thing for some, but personally, I saw it as evidence of Takumi being emotionally screwed. He has a hard time showing much of anyone affection, because he's afraid of being hurt or thought less of. I can totally believe that he'd be putting on an act of distrusting Corrin in order to "test" their loyalty before letting down his own defenses, unlike his other siblings' being overjoyed at Corrin's return (if only a temporary one, should they be on the Revelation or Conquest path). The guy is insecure as hell. He only drops all pretense at the end of Conquest because he's dead, and there's no more need to keep pretending.

Just how I always saw it.

I can see it what you're saying, but I was more so talking about the fact that it never really addresses this outside of Conquest sadly. Hence why I said it's not as big of a deal as the others. His inferiority complex is there, but it seems to be a general one rather than just a problem with Corrin. 

[NekoKnight]

8 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

I can definitely see why this would be a frustrating thing for some, but personally, I saw it as evidence of Takumi being emotionally screwed. He has a hard time showing much of anyone affection, because he's afraid of being hurt or thought less of. I can totally believe that he'd be putting on an act of distrusting Corrin in order to "test" their loyalty before letting down his own defenses, unlike his other siblings' being overjoyed at Corrin's return (if only a temporary one, should they be on the Revelation or Conquest path). The guy is insecure as hell. He only drops all pretense at the end of Conquest because he's dead, and there's no more need to keep pretending.

I think you're missing the point. It doesn't make much sense that Takumi has that attitude in Conquest where he never has any opportunity to bond with Kamui, unlike the other routes. Ryoma and Hinoka knew Kamui before he was kidnapped so they could understandably have mixed feelings in Conquest. Takumi's interaction with Kamui, in that continuity, has the latter being either directly or indirectly responsible for the death of his mother, brother, and likely both his retainers. The afterlife scene would make sense in Birthright, where Takumi would realize he was wrong to be initially hostile, but in Conquest, he was 100% justified in distrusting and hating Kamui.

Edited March 23, 2017 by NekoKnight

[Extrasolar]

27 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

I think you're missing the point. It doesn't make much sense that Takumi has that attitude in Conquest where he never has any opportunity to bond with Kamui, unlike the other routes. Ryoma and Hinoka knew Kamui before he was kidnapped so they could understandably have mixed feelings in Conquest. Takumi's interaction with Kamui, in that continuity, has the latter being either directly or indirectly responsible for the death of his mother, brother, and likely both his retainers. The afterlife scene would make sense in Birthright, where Takumi would realize he was wrong to be initially hostile, but in Conquest, he was 100% justified in distrusting and hating Kamui.

Hmm, this is just a personal theory of mine, but I imagine Takumi grew up hearing about the kidnapped sibling Corrin and how sad Ryoma and Hinoka were about it, and his lack of that personal connection to Corrin (as well as his own insecurity) likely led to a lot of his early hostility toward them. In fact, I wouldn't even put it past Takumi to be jealous of the attention that Ryoma and Hinoka are paying Corrin while they're initially in Hoshido.

I imagine that he wasn't closed off to the point that he was utterly rejecting any notions of getting close with Corrin until they betray Hoshido, since he's a pretty caring and emotional person deep down, but yeah, I definitely agree that he was right in distrusting Corrin and being pissed at them during those paths. That's not being disputed at all.

I see that scene as more Takumi confessing that he wasn't originally as hostile toward Corrin as he appeared to be - or, better said, he was unable to show them the affection he longed to show them. And his sorrow that he never made his true feelings clear at the time. He did wish they could have been closer. Heck, he might be harboring some feelings that his initial distrust and hostility toward Corrin might have driven them to Nohr, but that's completely theorizing.

[Sunwoo]

By the time the end of Conquest rolls around, as far as I'm concerned Takumi has nothing to apologize about to Corrin. Regardless of whether he wanted to be siblings or not, Corrin personally led an army into Hoshido and has killed not only soldiers only defending their country but also innocents. Even if some part of Takumi wanted to call Corrin their sibling, what Corrin has done by the end of Conquest should cancel out any lingering feelings of wanting them back. And Takumi just forgives them like Corrin didn't just destroy his country and spit on their parents' sacrifice.

[Extrasolar]

16 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

By the time the end of Conquest rolls around, as far as I'm concerned Takumi has nothing to apologize about to Corrin. Regardless of whether he wanted to be siblings or not, Corrin personally led an army into Hoshido and has killed not only soldiers only defending their country but also innocents. Even if some part of Takumi wanted to call Corrin their sibling, what Corrin has done by the end of Conquest should cancel out any lingering feelings of wanting them back. And Takumi just forgives them like Corrin didn't just destroy his country and spit on their parents' sacrifice.

Yeah, I'll agree with you on that one. I know that vengeful, scary final boss Takumi is meant to be a reanimated corpse controlled by Anankos, but...honestly, if it was just Takumi himself, kept supernaturally alive underneath the wrath of his own rage and Anankos' will, it would make much more sense, and he'd definitely be justified in it.

I know they set up that scene feel cathartic (in the sense of "Oh look, Takumi's finally getting to rest, and he's not actually mad at you") and sweet, but...it doesn't, because of all the things you've brought up there. But then again, the Conquest path as a whole is pretty shoddily written imo, so it's not exactly out of the ordinary.

[Tolvir]

And that is why I still consider Xander to be one of the best characters in the series, or at least would of been. Wow did Fate's writing really screw him over. Support Xander was a great character, and even in the prologue there were parts that made him seem really interesting (ignoring the kaze/rinkah scene, him showing up to help Corrin when he wasnt supposed to, his issues with Hans, it all made the story seem like it was going to go in a completely different direction than it did.)

Then Fate's story got a hold of him, and destroyed that character. He is the perfect example for everything wrong with Fates. To me, Xander will continue being one of my favorite characters in the series, just from a stand point of what he could of been in the story.