Fire Emblem Plots From the View of an Author

[Yula]

For the sake of simplicity as it has indeed been a while since I've either played certain games or I just straight up haven't played them at all(1, Gaiden, 3, Thracia, though I have watched Thracia so it's been a while), I will say that if I make any mistakes in this assessment, feel free to correct me. Also there will be spoilers ahead, so continue on at your own risk

 

FE1/11:

Spoiler

Now regarding the first game's plot, I will refer to Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. It's basic, but not actually bad. Though it does start the whole, "That guy is the real bad guy thing." I don't really have much to say on it because I haven't entirely beat Shadow Dragon, but from what little I know of it, Marth finally defeats Gra, then finds out that it's actually Grust doing it and then finds out about Gharnef and Medeus. Could be wrong. Shadow Dragon's plot was basic, works, but wasn't too interestin to me.

FE2/15

Spoiler

As for Gaiden? I know as much as, "Duma's being a dick, go stop him." That's as far as I got.

 

FE3/12

Spoiler

Mystery of the Emblem(I played New Mystery) is kind of interesting, even though it does pull out the whole "This is the real bad guy" trope that Fire Emblem loves to use. Marth has to deal with the fact that one of his friends and loyal allies from the first games, if not one of the MOST loyal and closest friend in that army from the first war has fallen to evil and is trying to take over Altea. But it also starts out innocently enough, however it quickly and swiftly turns into the protagonists finding out that it's Hardin. Then once Hardin is defeated, you learn what caused him to go down the dark path. He had found that he truly had no place in Nyna's heart, he could never hold a candle to Camus the Sable. He fell into despair and eventually Gharnef gave him the darksphere and it took hold of the darkness within his heart, turning Hardin from a kind man to the evil emperor you see in that game. I actually liked that. What I do not like is Gharnef without any physical form was able to disguise himself as a merchant and physically offer him the darksphere. Also Medeus is a rather tragic figure, but the problem is that this is the second time in history that he's revived. First in the series though.

 

FE4

Since this is a summary of what I think of the plot, I'll not let my judgment of the game itself cloud my judgment of the story. Alright, time to dive right in.

Spoiler

What starts off a standard, "Bandits are attacking, we must go stop them." Quickly escalates into a war that engulfs the entire continent. Sigurd, the lord of Granvalle stomps his way through the entire continent gaining allies and finding true love and even having a kid. However, little does he and his group know, they're pawns of Alvis and the Lopto sect. What I love most about Gen 1 of the game even though I can't stand playing it is that your nice little romp through the countryside, shoving your boot up the ass of everyone you can possibly find, actually comes back to bite you in the ass as Sigurd and his band of merry men are branded as traitors. It actually shows that the story has weight behind it, that the actions of the protagonists had consequences. And then I glossed over Gen 2, it was really just as far as I got into it, "I wanna avenge my daddy." It could be deeper than that, I honestly don't know.

 

FE5

Spoiler

Hoo boy. This is where my memory is gonna be failin me big time. From what little I know is that Lief was trying to create a Thracian liberation army and while looking for allies, lost one of their greatest allies to some guy that turned people to stone. That being said he is constantly on the run while looking for new allies and he eventually gets them and liberates Thracia. Then he takes the fight to the Lopto sect that has been fucking with his friends and family. Basic, I know, but I remember VERY little of it. What I do remember though, I do like, because it shows actual consequences and development and that you aren't just billy badass, that you have to work your way up to being able to win.

 

FE7

Spoiler

Elibe is honestly where the series had the greatest story telling in my opinion. Yes, I know I'm skipping to FE7, FE6 is next. As a prequel, FE7 introduces westerners and newcomers to the world of Fire Emblem. Ignoring the forced tutorial, which has many characters break the fourth wall. Lyn's story is quite well written and does a good job of introducing many of the characters that will be introduced. It goes from your standard, "Bandits are Banditing about." to  "Your granduncle is a dick, trying to kill your grandfather and will start a war against the rest of Lycia, stop him." But it does something along the way that hasn't been done since FE5. It shows the true evil organization quite early. You fight the Black Fang early on and they show themselves to be a ruthless force. This gives you a feeling that there is something more to all of this. Then you start Eliwood's mode and it starts as a search for his father, Eliwood doesn't know much about what's going on, but things escalate. The Black Fang is always present. Ephidel is always present through the first half of the game and it keeps escalating until Ephidel's death, but by that time, you find out that Ephidel had a boss. It doesn't feel like, "You killed the bad guy, here's the substitute teacher." This is, "You thought this guy was behind it all, but he was just a puppet." Then it becomes a desperate attempt to stop dragons from entering the world. The group goes to find Athos and find a way to stop Nergal, in a desperate move, Athos takes them to Brammimond and the eight legendary weapons of Elibe are unsealed(Forblaze which is in Athos' possession, Apocalypse which is in Brammimond's possession, Durandal(a mistranslation of Durendal) which was sealed by Roland, Armads(Which is a mistranslation of Almace) which was sealed by Durbans(A mistranslation of Turpin), Aureola which was sealed by Elimine, Murgleis which was sealed by Hanon, Maltet which was sealed by Barigan and Eckesachs(Mistranslated was Exxacus in the fan translation) which was sealed by Hartmut), however, they only have enough time to gather four of these weapons. Athos grabs his Foreblaze and Elimine's Aureola, while Eliwood and Hector split up to get Durandal and Durbans. As a last ditch effort, Nergal tries to destroy the heroes while they're burying Uther, this fails and naturally they go to the Dread Isle, which was also set up by Nergal. Eventually the heroes reach Nergal and fell him, but Nergal's plan succeeds, if only temporarily as the Fire Dragon is destroyed. As Athos lays dying, he sets up the plot to Fire Emblem 6 and the epilogue does the same. If you play Hector's story on the other hand, you start getting a lot more backstory on Nergal and find out just how tragic of a figure he really is and that he's the father of both Ninian and Nils who lost his wife, an Ice Dragon known as Aenir, which started his fall into darkness. Originally, he wanted quintessence to get his children back, but it was too much for him and he forgot what his purpose was and what he originally wanted to do. Instead, he thought he wanted more power, in order to become the god of the world. You also in addition to this get backstory on Kishuna, a morph that through an error in his creation turned him into a Magic Seal that wasn't capable of fighting. That only wanted to make Nergal happy. It really is a rather tragic and enjoyable story and in order to get the whole tale and the best experience, in my opinion, you have to play on Hector mode instead.

 

FE6

Spoiler

Continuing with the whole theme of escalation, my memory is a bit fuzzy on FE6. All I remember, really is that Bern's army starts conquering the world and from that, Roy is sort of forced into action because his father is ill. Originally it was to stop bandits that were again banditing around, then the half-sister of the king gets involved and finds Roy and tells him about what's going on. So Roy's idea is to go get Hector so that he can lead the Lycian League into battle against Bern. Hector catches a slight case of bleeding to death. So it falls upon Roy to lead the Lycian League, while gathering the 8 legendary weapons of Elibe. Now I didn't go the Illa route in my playthrough, I went the Sacae route. So what little I remember of playing the game nearly 10 years ago now is that Bern ransacked their way through Etruria, convinced Douglas to join them or lose the kids that he had adopted. The Western isles were the shithole they always were and Sacae was basically being ransacked by the Djute clan. Many of the characters were actually well written though and the story was somewhat believable, because the entire time, even though Idoun was the true final boss, even though you always knew Idoun was there. It was Zephiel's orders that had orchestrated the entire thing... all Yahn ever did was give Zephiel the means to achieve his goal. This gets a five star rating for me and is why I love Elibe so much. FE7 and FE6 connect so well and build off of each other, the world building is absolutely superb.

 

FE8

Spoiler

Where... do I... begin... Sacred Stones' story is a bit of a mess. From Chapter 1 to 9, it's consistent, Eririka is trying to find her brother Ephraim so that they can return to Renias. Ephraim wants to stop Grado for killing their father. After that, the paths diverge, If you're playing Eirika's story, you never get to know that Lyon was already lost and you never get to know what drove him to do these things in the first place. There really isn't any point in me mentioning this as it feels like your standard Fire Emblem plot. Only difference is, you actually do get some backstory for Joshua. Ephraim's story on the other hand has him go to strike at the heart of Grado, he meets up with Grado Soldiers who aren't content with what's going on as well as other individuals including his own teacher. Eventually they reach the capitol and confront Vigarde, the emperor, only to find out that Vigarde was surprise, necromancied back to life by Lyon, who they quickly find out was consumed by Grado's sacred stone, the Fire Emblem. You quickly find out after that, that Lyon is no more and that Lyon's body is Formortiis' host now. No matter which path you pick, you go off and kill Formortiis, the difference is that in Ephraim's case, it's escalation. In Eirika's case, it's substitute teacher day. And though I feel Ephraim's story is better written, someone needs to fire the guy that left in, "I am returned."

 

FE9

Spoiler

Alright, this is probably where I'm going to catch a lot of flak. But though I do love the escalation aspect of the whole thing, I have problems with Ike as a whole and how the story seems to cater to him. First the story starts off as the Greil Mercenaries being hired out to clear out local bandits, the Daein army gets involved and eventually, Greil is killed off by the Black Knight. Alright, no problems so far. Then Ike is handed command of the Mercenary outfit. Ike, unproven mercenary, was still in training. Is handed command... of a mercenary group. Armies worked like this back in those days where nobility commanded armies. Mercenary groups did not and still do not. Regardless of what Titania wanted, she would've become the defacto leader, not Ike. If not her, then Shinon would've. I legitimately do not blame Shinon for leaving. Ike's first idea of a command for the mercenary outfit, "Let's go out and fight the guy that just killed the strongest person in our group." Despite the fact that Soren is the only reason Ike even remotely has a chance of winning, Elincia sees everything as Ike's doing and not Soren being the smart guy that even Ike's like, "Yo, Soren, I'm gonna defer to you." So what does Elincia do? Make Ike a Noble and gives him command of the Crimean army. The boy goes from leader of a mercenary outfit of like 30 to 40 people to general of an army of at least 40,000 people and yet, this works and he makes no mistakes at all. So then Sanaki hears that he's going to go after the Black Knight and decides to give him Ragnell instead of you know, taking Begnion's sacred treasure back. Also depending on what version you're playing, Ike either fights a shadow of the Black Knight or the Black Knight lets him win to see his true potential. So then Ike, who really shouldn't have gotten all of this treatment in the first place, being technically a Daein noble and even then everyone thinks he's base born, is the only Beorc unit later on even allowed to fight Ashnard. That's only Path of Radiance, by the way. Good story, marred by "Baseborn" protagonist that is given everything in a medieval world.

 

FE10

Spoiler

Michaiah's storyline is good, it shows the struggle of the Daein forces over the cruelty of the Begnion occupation group, unfortunately this part is entirely too short and most of it, Sothe spends his time fawning over Ike. Elincia and Crimea's storyline is great because it shows a wartorn country being torn apart by internal struggles and Elincia having to make the choice between sacrificing one woman or the entire country. She wisely chose the needs of the many. And this is where I stop praising it, at all. Ike comes out of nowhere with his group, completely shitting on this entire character development moment and thus FE10 becomes the Ike show where everything is supposed to be Ike's job all the time. Ike is the only one that gets to fight Zelgius, Ike is the only one who gets to fight Ashera, despite theoretically half the cast being able to wield Alondite. I'm sorry, but I don't really have much good to say about this. Also, just by the by, the entirety of Part 4 could've just... never happened, you go straight to the tower and nothing of note would actually have been lost. 

 

FE13

Spoiler

Awakening... awakening... awakening. The most divisive entry in the series, or it was until fates came along. Starting off with a Bandit story AGAIN, because why not(Can we please get mercenaries in FE16, like... please, I'm kind of sick of saying, "Well it starts with Bandits"), but soon becomes a jumbled mess of time travel, the undead and dragons. But... despite all of this, I actually do enjoy the personalities of the characters, even if some of them could be a bit one note. The character interactions were enjoyable and that the fact that you could make decisions that would slightly alter how the story would go was rather enjoyable. Like most people, I don't think that the Valm arc was entirely necessary, but it was a rather nice addition. Again, it did deal with the whole escalation thing instead of the, "This is the substitute teacher." trope that Fire Emblem is notorious for pulling. My major problems with the game's plot is that there are a lot of plot points that the last few paralogues just outright shit on. Like Emmeryn's sacrifice. The sacrifice was a powerful moment that showed the leader give up her life so that the last bit of hope wouldn't be snuffed out only to be shat on by a completely canon paralogue. 

 

FE14

Spoiler

To the game's credit it does start off with you fighting things other than just standard bandits. Unfortunately that's really the only thing the three different plots get right. I'll just summarize my opinion on them. Brightright plays the whole white on black morality thing that Fire Emblem is known for extremely straight while you go through as the good guys destroying all of Nohr, yet are portrayed favorably. Conquest plays black on blacker on white morality where you are part of the black side who is trying to stop a greater evil, while destroying what is outright stated to be the good guys. Revelation... the less said about that mess the better, but it plays the whole canon fire emblem story of, "We figured out that there is a real mastermind behind the scenes" perfectly and is why I believe that Fates also has a form of time travel, allowing Corrin to return to the past. A lot of the characters are unenjoyable, especially on the Nohrian side where many of the characters downright have no business being anywhere near a weapon(Peri and Camilla especially come to mind) or a battlefield in what they're wearing(Camilla again and Charolette). Fates is a mess, a salvageable mess in my opinion, but a mess. Oh and the best written storyline path is locked behind another DLC paywall so I never even bothered with Heirs of Fate.

 

So these are my personal assessments of the Fire Emblem series games as a whole, remember, just my personal subjective opinion and views on the games.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Thran Starcrod
Changed quote tags to spoiler tags

[vanguard333]

6 hours ago, Thran Starcrod said:

FE9

  Hide contents

Alright, this is probably where I'm going to catch a lot of flak. But though I do love the escalation aspect of the whole thing, I have problems with Ike as a whole and how the story seems to cater to him. First the story starts off as the Greil Mercenaries being hired out to clear out local bandits, the Daein army gets involved and eventually, Greil is killed off by the Black Knight. Alright, no problems so far. Then Ike is handed command of the Mercenary outfit. Ike, unproven mercenary, was still in training. Is handed command... of a mercenary group. Armies worked like this back in those days where nobility commanded armies. Mercenary groups did not and still do not. Regardless of what Titania wanted, she would've become the defacto leader, not Ike. If not her, then Shinon would've. I legitimately do not blame Shinon for leaving. Ike's first idea of a command for the mercenary outfit, "Let's go out and fight the guy that just killed the strongest person in our group." Despite the fact that Soren is the only reason Ike even remotely has a chance of winning, Elincia sees everything as Ike's doing and not Soren being the smart guy that even Ike's like, "Yo, Soren, I'm gonna defer to you." So what does Elincia do? Make Ike a Noble and gives him command of the Crimean army. The boy goes from leader of a mercenary outfit of like 30 to 40 people to general of an army of at least 40,000 people and yet, this works and he makes no mistakes at all. So then Sanaki hears that he's going to go after the Black Knight and decides to give him Ragnell instead of you know, taking Begnion's sacred treasure back. Also depending on what version you're playing, Ike either fights a shadow of the Black Knight or the Black Knight lets him win to see his true potential. So then Ike, who really shouldn't have gotten all of this treatment in the first place, being technically a Daein noble and even then everyone thinks he's base born, is the only Beorc unit later on even allowed to fight Ashnard. That's only Path of Radiance, by the way. Good story, marred by "Baseborn" protagonist that is given everything in a medieval world.

 

Some mistakes you made about PoR; not trying to give you any flack, just pointing out areas where you are incorrect: Ike was being groomed to be his father's successor since day 1, it just happened far sooner than anyone expected. It can be interpreted as a mercenary-in-training being given command; but Ike already had to lead most of the group a few times in previous chapters. Also, Ike's first order was not to go out and kill the Black Knight; the Black Knight if anything was a personal challenge for him alone. He was not given Ragnell in PoR (I think you're thinking of Radiant Dawn when you mention Sanaki giving Ike Ragnell); the Black Knight gave Ragnell to Greil, but Greil refused it, and Ike later retrieved it; and he only used it because he needed it to overcome the Black Knight's blessed armour. Also, Ike gave Ragnell to Begnion after the war ended. Soren was an advisor, and there is a difference between listening to an advisor and the advisor being the only reason they stand a chance. The Crimean Army ceased to exist when Crimea got conquered. The only reason Ike was made a noble was so that he could lead the Begnion Forces that Sanaki loaned to them; and they had to make him noble to do that because Begnion is extremely classist. Also, everyone, including Sanaki and especially Elincia would have known that Ike does not like the idea of becoming a noble. Ike mainly avoids mistakes by listening to Soren and Titania as well as ordering that, "General Tanith's troops... are to follow General Tanith's orders." Finally, Ike does make a very big mistake:

Spoiler

Trusting Nasir without once suspecting him of being a spy, even when all evidence pointed to the existence of a spy.

I am not trying to give you any flack. In your opinion, the story of PoR is not that good, and that's perfectly fine. I am just trying to point out where you have gotten certain things incorrect.

Edited April 20, 2017 by vanguard333

[Yula]

Well, to be fair, I went off of my memory of the game, which I haven't played since I had carpal tunnel back in 2011.

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 hours ago, Thran Starcrod said:

Elibe is honestly where the series had the greatest story telling in my opinion.

Nergal is a tragic figure, but you have to go out of your way to find the tragedy and do a little hypothesizing. That isn't inherently a bad thing, but unless you get to that ridiculously tedious to unlock 19xx, you'll never find it out. And, if you don't learn that NoA botched one really important word in Nergal's dying breath.

Kishuna on that note has no reason to exist, what does he contribute to the overall plot? Nothing, pretty much nothing. He is a sad story, and he is important for Renault (who can never speak with him due to the whole Magic Seal thing), but he just barely matters at all for Nergal.

I wouldn't use the word "desperate" to describe the search for an anti-Nergal countermeasure or the unsealing of the divine weapons. Well the conversation with Brammimond is kind of dramatic, but not that much. It isn't like gigantic fire dragons are razing huge swathes of Elibe with every passing day, the search that ends in Athos and the quest to the Shrine of Seals is fairly mellow, not much intensity outside of Battle Before Dawn.

Lyn's story is pure tutorial outside of 7/7x. Nothing really special, heck I kinda despise how it makes it out that Lyn's band of 10 or so soldiers defeats all of Caelin's forces. I mean it is plausible to a degree with a small enough Caelin and Caelin population, but it doesn't quite sit right with me.

I will not say Nergal is twiddling his thumbs the whole time after the first visit to Dread Isle, a criticism some would make, due to him via Sonia sending the Four Fangs plus Vaida at LEH. 

 

And in my own remarks:

I see you condemned the Paralogue resurrections of Awakening, but didn't say anything about the one at the end of FE7. Your opinion on that one? I'll say it's a deus ex machina, and a cheap one at that, but the silver lining is that it shows highest mastery of darkness is capable of the power of resurrection- a remarkable thing in FE.

For FE10, the plot had potential in Part 1, was splendid in Part 2, and was actually pretty good in Part 3. That is, until ~3-12, as soon as the Blood Pact entered, everything went downhill. I feel if the entrance of the GMs had been less of a showstopper, that some wouldn't have found the initial reappearance of Ike so bad. And, Sanaki gets some decent stuff going for her in the Dawn Army chapters of Part 4, and I do find the first and sort of the second Hawk Army chapters fairly decent at world-building/trivial conversation. 

I will condemn the Ike worship, I condemn all unjustifiable worship, but it is nothing special in FE- most lords are worshipped in FE. Be it if they are for some reason perfect in war (FE1/3/11 Marth, Corrin, Seliph) or dependent on others (FE12 Marth, Chrom, LEH, Ike).

I will agree that it is refreshing when something other than a bandit attack for starts off an FE plot. I'm thinking in the future they could try having a war already underway at the very start, and the hero is an unexperienced guy doing a minor job against weak enemies while the bigwigs do the real work offscreen.

[Yula]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And in my own remarks:

I see you condemned the Paralogue resurrections of Awakening, but didn't say anything about the one at the end of FE7. Your opinion on that one? I'll say it's a deus ex machina, and a cheap one at that, but the silver lining is that it shows highest mastery of darkness is capable of the power of resurrection- a remarkable thing in FE.

Not gonna lie, I actually completely forgot about Ninian's resurrection. 

[NekoKnight]

What does you being an author have to do with your opinions on the story. Anyway, here's my feedback as an English teacher. 

Someone already addressed your bit on PoR, so I'll talk about RD. How was Elincia's character moment ruined by Ike? The climax of her character arc was the willingness to choose the many over the few. Yes, Ike does rescue Lucia but Elincia didn't know that he would. It was enough that Elincia made the choice, which leads to Lucia's badass speach. 

[Yula]

8 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

What does you being an author have to do with your opinions on the story. 

Nothing, I just thought it sounded better than, "Random Let's Player." Or "Random Dude."

 

8 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

What does you being an author have to do with your opinions on the story. Anyway, here's my feedback as an English teacher. 

Someone already addressed your bit on PoR, so I'll talk about RD. How was Elincia's character moment ruined by Ike? The climax of her character arc was the willingness to choose the many over the few. Yes, Ike does rescue Lucia but Elincia didn't know that he would. It was enough that Elincia made the choice, which leads to Lucia's badass speech. 

The part that I have bolded is what I had taken umbrage with in regards to the story, it had come out of absolutely nowhere without any hints that I, as a player, could pick up. So that's why I felt that I should point it out. To me it just felt like, "Happy ending for the sake of status quo."

[NekoKnight]

Didn't they send for the Greil Mercs? I thought Bastion or someone was sent out to find them.

Anyway, I don't think a sad ending is required for Elincia's choice to be a significant moment of her character growth.

[Acacia Sgt]

Regarding that particular detail, I suppose it all comes down to what one believes to be "enough". Can it be considered enough that Elincia made the choice, or can it only be enough if she actually gets to live through the consequences of such choice? One could argue that it could set a bad precedent, since a fact of life is that you'll have to make choices that you can't avoid facing the consequences of. But for now, Elincia was spared from such thing. In any case, if there's a future lesson for Elincia, is that Bastian won't always be there and/or be capable of solving every single problem.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Acacia Sgt

[Yula]

The Greil Mercenaries openly said that they wouldn't be able to come. The fact that they arrived is a contradiction to this, which would be fine if a signal was given to the player. From what I remember, it was "We can't come." then the plot thread was dropped then, "Sorry we had to deceive allies as well as enemies for our plan to work." So the entire plan was letting Lucia nearly get executed, have Elinicia worry about everything, have Ludveck nearly win and then pull a big damn heroes instead of using your reputation as the guys that stopped the Daein army to intimidate Ludveck and his rebellion. Especially since the Greil Mercenaries showed in that cutscene that they were more than capable of taking on that little rebellion without taking a scratch. 

 

And while yes, it was a staggeringly impressive step that Elincia made that decision on her own, she never had to live with the consequences of her decision. It was outright undone by Ike and his merry men saving the day and Elincia outside of part 2 never shows any real change to her personality, seeming like the same character she started part 2 as, except for the whole memory of Lucia almost dying. Nothing more. If you're going to save Lucia, at least show that it has a lasting effect on both characters. Nearly being hanged isn't easy for the person being hanged and nearly condemning your best friend to death leaves a lasting impact on a person. While I'm not asking for grimdark and edgy, at least some hesitation in her actions.

[Jotari]

On 4/21/2017 at 1:16 AM, Thran Starcrod said:

FE1/11:

  Hide contents

Now regarding the first game's plot, I will refer to Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. It's basic, but not actually bad. Though it does start the whole, "That guy is the real bad guy thing." I don't really have much to say on it because I haven't entirely beat Shadow Dragon, but from what little I know of it, Marth finally defeats Gra, then finds out that it's actually Grust doing it and then finds out about Gharnef and Medeus. Could be wrong. Shadow Dragon's plot was basic, works, but wasn't too interestin to me.

This isn't even half true. Right from the very start who exactly Marth's enemies are is made very clear. In fact it was Grust that Altea was fighting when Gra betrayed them.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Jotari

[Yula]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

This isn't even half true. Right from the very start who exactly Marth's enemies are is made very clear. In fact it was Grust that Altea was fighting when Gra betrayed them.

You're right now that I think of it. Whoops. Problems of trying to pull several games plots out of memory, especially when you never finished shadow dragon. You tend to forget things and meld other things together.