I'm Proud Echoes Didn't Use The Power of Friendship (spoilers)

[Captain Karnage]

sure at the end of the game we got some deus ex machina with Celica being brought back to life by Mila, but still, nobodys friendship brought somebody back to life.

sorry for the short post I'm just really glad to see this wasn't in the game

[Midnight Torch]

40 minutes ago, Captain Karnage said:

sure at the end of the game we got some deus ex machina with Celica being brought back to life by Mila, but still, nobodys friendship brought somebody back to life.

sorry for the short post I'm just really glad to see this wasn't in the game

Was Celica being brought back really a deus ex machina? She was brought back by Mila, who also created the Sacred Spring, some of which resurrect units.

[maybe]

25 minutes ago, Midnight Torch said:

Was Celica being brought back really a deus ex machina? She was brought back by Mila, who also created the Sacred Spring, some of which resurrect units.

yeah, her conversation in the awakening DLC is even about "would you bring someone back from the dead"

that scene was still pointless but it was bad for different reasons

[Slumber]

I'll never get over Awakening's ending and how fucking awful its use of friendship power was.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Slumber

[Thane]

It sort of does though. They pretty much say "we'll screw the continent if we seal Duma, but we'll all work the fields together and sing Kumbayah".

[Emerson]

12 minutes ago, Thane said:

It sort of does though. They pretty much say "we'll screw the continent if we seal Duma, but we'll all work the fields together and sing Kumbayah".

I'd say that's less about friendship and more about hard work, but I suppose that line could be taken subjectively.

[Thane]

1 minute ago, Emerson said:

I'd say that's less about friendship and more about hard work, but I suppose that line could be taken subjectively.

Sure, but working hard doesn't create rain, nor does it repair the rift between Zofia and Rigel after the war and all of that. They go on about creating a united nation of two distinct peoples who have been separated for thousands of years, with Lukas stating things like nobility won't matter anymore. They're effectively talking about creating an ideal world by working together, and if that's not the power of friendship, I'm not really sure what is.

[maybe]

3 minutes ago, Thane said:

Sure, but working hard doesn't create rain, nor does it repair the rift between Zofia and Rigel after the war and all of that. They go on about creating a united nation of two distinct peoples who have been separated for thousands of years, with Lukas stating things like nobility won't matter anymore. They're effectively talking about creating an ideal world by working together, and if that's not the power of friendship, I'm not really sure what is.

i think the point was more that it doesn't happen in the story

like, the good guys don't win because of their magic friendship powers

i'm not sure why this single lack of a thing warranted its own thread since as far as I know it's not especially common in fire emblem games, though I never finished fates so I'm not sure how much of a thing it is there

but it is true that no one's friendship power does magical things in the game

[Armagon]

2 hours ago, Captain Karnage said:

sure at the end of the game we got some deus ex machina with Celica being brought back to life by Mila

It's not really a deus ex machina moment since resurrection is an established thing in Archanea games. Aum Staff, Revival Springs, Valkyrie Staff. Yes, i know Valkyrie Staff is Jugdral but Jugdral is in the same world as Archanea and Valentia.

 

16 minutes ago, Thane said:

It sort of does though. They pretty much say "we'll screw the continent if we seal Duma, but we'll all work the fields together and sing Kumbayah".

But like, it's not like they needed Duma and Mila there to keep the continent alive. I'm sure the Valentians realized that after a while. Valm shows that the continent did pretty well without it's Gods for the past 2000 years.

Just now, Thane said:

Sure, but working hard doesn't create rain, nor does it repair the rift between Zofia and Rigel after the war and all of that. They go on about creating a united nation of two distinct peoples who have been separated for thousands of years, with Lukas stating things like nobility won't matter anymore. They're effectively talking about creating an ideal world by working together, and if that's not the power of friendship, I'm not really sure what is.

It's not like it happened overnight though. Some of the character's endings even mention how there was the occasional rebellion or other problems. It very likely took a while to get the One Kingdom of Valentia to fully prosper, even if Alm and Celica, as well as their allies, had a lot of support from the people. And then 1000 years later, the One Kingdom of Valentia splits into several smaller countries during the Schism, though we don't know the details of that.

Just now, unique said:

i'm not sure why this single lack of a thing warranted its own thread since as far as I know it's not especially common in fire emblem games, though I never finished fates so I'm not sure how much of a thing it is there

Fates did have a power of friendship moment at the end of Heirs of Fate. But power of friendship never really bothered me in anything before, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[Thane]

Just now, Armagon said:

But like, it's not like they needed Duma and Mila there to keep the continent alive. I'm sure the Valentians realized that after a while. Valm shows that the continent did pretty well without it's Gods for the past 2000 years.

I'm very well aware that Valm is proof Valentia survived. What I point out is how they never once address how they're going to actually deal with things like the droughts caused by Mila's absence, and whatever will happen to Rigel once Duma is gone.

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

It's not like it happened overnight though. Some of the character's endings even mention how there was the occasional rebellion or other problems. It very likely took a while to get the One Kingdom of Valentia to fully prosper, even if Alm and Celica, as well as their allies, had a lot of support from the people. 

Again, this is only alluded to; we have no idea what these rebellions were about or anything of the sort.

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

 And then 1000 years later, the One Kingdom of Valentia splits into several smaller countries during the Schism, though we don't know the details of that.

Ah yes, just 1000 years of peace and prosperity. Why did they even fight in the first place if that was all they could achieve?

[Slumber]

7 minutes ago, Armagon said:

But power of friendship never really bothered me in anything before, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Have friends/roommates recommend you enough anime and you'll start to wretch any time "friendship" is ever mentioned as a fix-all to problems(Like friendship somehow saving Robin from also dying when Grima dies).

Especially if one of those anime they recommend you is Fairy Tail.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Slumber

[Armagon]

2 minutes ago, Thane said:

Again, this is only alluded to; we have no idea what these rebellions were about or anything of the sort.

We don't, we just know it happened, so it's just headcanon territory at that point.

2 minutes ago, Thane said:

Ah yes, just 1000 years of peace and prosperity. Why did they even fight in the first place if that was all they could achieve?

I don't know man, 1000 years of peace and prosperity seems pretty damn good. Archanea also had 1000 years of peace and prosperity before whatever happened in the Schism. Outside of that continuity, Elibe had 1000 years of peace and prosperity after the Scouring, but then the events of Blazing Blade happened, and then later on, Binding Blade. Magvel had 800 years of peace and prosperity before the events of Sacred Stones.

The real world is lucky if it goes even 10 years of peace and prosperity.

1 minute ago, Slumber said:

Have friends recommend you enough anime and you'll start to wretch any time "friendship" is ever mentioned as a fix-all to problems(Like friendship somehow saving Robin from also dying when Grima dies).

Especially if one of those anime they recommend you is Fairy Tail.

Except my favorite anime is Fairy Tail. So yeah, again, power of friendship doesn't really bother me.

[Thane]

Just now, Armagon said:

I don't know man, 1000 years of peace and prosperity seems pretty damn good. Archanea also had 1000 years of peace and prosperity before whatever happened in the Schism. Outside of that continuity, Elibe had 1000 years of peace and prosperity after the Scouring, but then the events of Blazing Blade happened, and then later on, Binding Blade. Magvel had 800 years of peace and prosperity before the events of Sacred Stones.

The real world is lucky if it goes even 10 years of peace and prosperity.

 

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

We don't, we just know it happened, so it's just headcanon territory at that point.

Then why bring it up?

[Slumber]

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Except my favorite anime is Fairy Tail. So yeah, again, power of friendship doesn't really bother me.

Oh... well then... We should probably never talk about that, because I don't think it would end well.

Either way, the use of friendship, like in the example of Robin, is often synonymous with a deus ex machina, and usually contradicts what we're told leading up to the revelation of friendship power. With Robin, we're told that they're the only one that can actually kill Grima, but since Grima is also Robin, doing so would kill Robin. Or Chrom could "kill" Grima, but that would just put him to sleep for a millennia, leaving another group some thousand years down the line to potentially go through what the Awakening children went through.

But then out of nowhere, Robin kills Grima, and comes back to life like nothing happened because of friendship. It makes the whole choice pointless, and basically just makes Chrom dumb for even considering not letting Robin kill Grima. It also boils his role in the overall story down to nothing but moral support. He never had a chance at being important in the grand scheme of things, even though he was the main character for the first few chunks of the game.

It's just a really, really, really lazy plot device that only exists so nobody gets sad, and it makes all of the consideration everybody goes through when trying to deal with Grima seem like padding.

Obviously not all "Friendship fixes everything" plot lines are this bad, but I'd say most stories that use friendship like Awakening do irreparable harm to the story. Especially when it's the last plot point of the story like this.

It also tends to have this bad implication of "People without friends are evil" or "People without friends won't succeed", which is really not a message you should be sending, since most of these stories that use the friendship band-aid are aimed at children.

[Sentinel07]

I don't mind power of friendship in other anime/games where something like that is more typical and expected. Persona for example, thrives off it's focus on friendship and I quite like it a lot there.

However, I don't like it as much in Fire Emblem because everytime Intelligent Systems has used it, it feels forced, like it's only there to manufacture drama. The whole "bonds" thing possibly bringing Robin back to life for example is stupid. It would have been much better drama-wise and story-wise if Robin dealing the final blow truly ended his life, as that would be a lot more powerful and impactful.

Another instance where I don't like this is the Heirs of Fate storyline from Fates, where Shigure says they can join in the last battle if they sacrifice their memories of the events. Stuff like that makes zero sense to me, even though this is a fantasy series. It feels like a plot device purely there to manufacture drama, something it didn't really need.

[TheTrueKnight]

Echoes has the power of love, which is even worst than the power of friendship imo.

Alm's journey happens only because he loves Celica, that's the only thing guiding him (at least at the beginning).

[Slumber]

38 minutes ago, Sentinel07 said:

I don't mind power of friendship in other anime/games where something like that is more typical and expected. Persona for example, thrives off it's focus on friendship and I quite like it a lot there.

However, I don't like it as much in Fire Emblem because everytime Intelligent Systems has used it, it feels forced, like it's only there to manufacture drama. The whole "bonds" thing possibly bringing Robin back to life for example is stupid. It would have been much better drama-wise and story-wise if Robin dealing the final blow truly ended his life, as that would be a lot more powerful and impactful.

Another instance where I don't like this is the Heirs of Fate storyline from Fates, where Shigure says they can join in the last battle if they sacrifice their memories of the events. Stuff like that makes zero sense to me, even though this is a fantasy series. It feels like a plot device purely there to manufacture drama, something it didn't really need.

Persona, from the get-go, uses the idea that personal bonds give your character strength. It uses it as a plot point and a gameplay point from the start, and never really gives the impression that every problem in the stories can be fixed by friendship. Hell, Persona 3 added a whole sequel story that involves trying to bring the

 

main character back to life. But ultimately they come to the conclusion that even if they DO bring him back, that would probably undo the seal on Nyx/Erebus, and would likely cause the apocalypse. Ultimately, friendship does not bring the main character back, and his death doesn't lose any impact, since The Answer deals a lot more with the Persona 3 party members realizing what happened after their memory wipe, and coming to terms with the end of Persona 3.

This is similar through most Persona games. Friendship plays an important role on story and gameplay, but it doesn't every really dictate meaningful choices near the end of the games. The only time I think it really does is

 

the female MC's bond with Shinji in P3P keeping him from dying when he gets shot by Takaya.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Slumber

[maybe]

1 minute ago, TheTrueKnight said:

Echoes has the power of love, which is even worst than the power of friendship imo.

Alm's journey happens only because he loves Celica, that's the only thing guiding him (at least at the beginning).

that's not a literal power though, that's just a motivation

and even then I think it was fine

alm and celica met a long time ago, they grew close to each other, alm promises to meet her again, so he trains to one day be strong enough to leave the village and meet her again

it's not even the "only thing guiding him" either, he wants to help people and this gives him the chance to do that as well as the possibility of meeting celica again

[Thane]

4 minutes ago, unique said:

that's not a literal power though, that's just a motivation

Aside from that medallion, I guess.

[maybe]

Just now, Thane said:

Aside from that medallion, I guess.

yeah that part was dumb and didn't make sense but that doesn't seem to be what that guy was talking about

[The Malign Knight]

23 minutes ago, TheTrueKnight said:

Echoes has the power of love, which is even worst than the power of friendship imo.

Alm's journey happens only because he loves Celica, that's the only thing guiding him (at least at the beginning).

Not really. Alm's journey happens not because of his love for Celica, but rather because he knows he can do much more than just staying in a small and monotone village.

[Iridium]

4 hours ago, Midnight Torch said:

Was Celica being brought back really a deus ex machina? She was brought back by Mila, who also created the Sacred Spring, some of which resurrect units.

I've been working under the assumption that Celica's revival was just an in-universe application of Mila's turnwheel, except done directly by the source instead of through the artifact itself.

[B.Leu]

Generally, having a sword in you stomach make you dead, just like having you soul stolen, so yeah, that's a deus ex machina. Not one that annoy me much, but still a deus ex machina.

But yeah, it's refreshing to see no bs friendship no jutsu, yeah they'll have to work together and everything, but that's how a nation work.

1 hour ago, Sentinel07 said:

I don't mind power of friendship in other anime/games where something like that is more typical and expected. Persona for example, thrives off it's focus on friendship and I quite like it a lot there.

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Persona, from the get-go, uses the idea that personal bonds give your character strength.

Persona 1 and 2's did not used the friendship tropes that much, it's at Persona 3 that they started it, and went kindaaaaa overboard in P4 and it's updates. And spin-offs.
Imagine it: If in Jojo, the Stands, the representation of your psychic energy or whatever, is actually powered by friendship. how freaking lame and reducing that would that be ?

After thousands and thousands of anime, manga or videogames that use the power of friendship in the exact same manner, I really can't stand it.:p

[GuiltyLove]

The only time I like the power of friendship is in Higurashi :P

It was awful in FE13 though. Then again, that whole plot was kinda.. meh

[Light Strategist]

37 minutes ago, Iridium said:

I've been working under the assumption that Celica's revival was just an in-universe application of Mila's turnwheel, except done directly by the source instead of through the artifact itself.

And focused onto that specific point so as to undo any damage. Otherwise the events likely would've just played out again.