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6 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

I think female slavery is used as a G rated alternative to what real people would do. I imagine that bandits would just rape and kill a woman unless they could ransomed, but Nintendo doesn't want the R word in their games.

Not that I mind, really. It's a suitably heavy topic that doesn't need to be explicitly discussed. This isn't Game of Thrones here.

What R word? Do you mean-

Spoiler

ransomed?

I mean, Genealogy's fan translation basically says that Deirdre was going to get raped, and it sounded like Aideen was being threatened with it. I mean, I know that's done by the fans, but it's as close as fans can get it. Nintendo in Japan apparently didn't mind covering that sort of thing.

Edited by Florina's #1 Fan
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3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I also think IS's modern sensibilities approach may be hindering its plots. Tellius for instance has Laguz-Beorc conflict, and while it is mentioned that Laguz were the oppressors at one point and hate on the Branded, the picture one feels of the situation in the game and not just the lore is that the Laguz are always the oppressed, and the Beorc always the oppressors. IS can't quite accept the (controversial) idea that the oppressed are capable of oppressing.

The Manakete/human conflicts have both oppressing. 

Though then again, the Divine Dragon tribe of Manaketes are never depicted in the wrong, especially after Kaga.

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4 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I also think IS's modern sensibilities approach may be hindering its plots. Tellius for instance has Laguz-Beorc conflict, and while it is mentioned that Laguz were the oppressors at one point and hate on the Branded, the picture one feels of the situation in the game and not just the lore is that the Laguz are always the oppressed, and the Beorc always the oppressors. IS can't quite accept the (controversial) idea that the oppressed are capable of oppressing.

I totally agree with you here, that's part of where FE should get its gray area. The 'totally pure and innocent victims' thing is getting old, and although Laguz trash talk Beorc, they don't actually treat them like trash, and when they do, it's because they think the Beorc is going to strike first, like that one house in PoR's chapter 9, where a Laguz realizes you're a Beorc, freaks out and plays dead, and before you can say anything, out of fear and hatred, they give you something (I don't remember what it was) and shoo you away.

(Sorry to bug you about my writing) When I started writing for my FE concept blog, this was one of the first things I wanted to change. In almost every game that has a shapeshifting creature like the manakete, they are depicted as just victims, but I was wondering, after all that abuse, why would they not want to strike back? I mean, they are so powerful, Manakete can take down many foes single-handedly. So when I wrote out the conflict, I decided that the antagonists would be a rebellion of shapeshifters, and that they were angry for how they were treated by humans.

The main villain lost his home to Lyrouche, the protagonists' country, because they wanted to claim the land as a colony, and they did not tell anyone that the area was actually inhabited, instead, they wiped out a peaceful clan of angel-like manakete silently and the antagonist's family was forced to flee. So they aren't just abused at the beginning of the story and then they want to help the species that abused them, they're bitter with humans because of how they were treated. Even other types of shifters, like Wolfskin, are introduced as resentful toward humans because they were enslaved. This gives the shifters a reason to be angry, but not necessarily justification for a horrible, bloody march across the continent.

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6 minutes ago, Florina's #1 Fan said:

(Sorry to bug you about my writing) When I started writing for my FE concept blog, this was one of the first things I wanted to change. In almost every game that has a shapeshifting creature like the manakete, they are depicted as just victims, but I was wondering, after all that abuse, why would they not want to strike back? I mean, they are so powerful, Manakete can take down many foes single-handedly. So when I wrote out the conflict, I decided that the antagonists would be a rebellion of shapeshifters, and that they were angry for how they were treated by humans

With Manaketes, many of them are almost always or always depicted as villainous.

Its just the Divine Dragon Tribe is always depicted as benevolent.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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Just now, Emperor Hardin said:

With Manaketes, many of them are almost always or exclusively depicted as villainous.

Its just the Divine Dragon Tribe is always depicted as benevolent.

Oh. That's what I meant. Whenever I think Manakete, I think the ones that transform with a dragonstone and are normally in human-esque form, like Tiki, Nowi, and Fae. The ones that are worshiped as deities, I tend to forget they're actually also dragons.

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3 minutes ago, Florina's #1 Fan said:

Oh. That's what I meant. Whenever I think Manakete, I think the ones that transform with a dragonstone and are normally in human-esque form, like Tiki, Nowi, and Fae. The ones that are worshiped as deities, I tend to forget they're actually also dragons.

Divine Dragons are far from the only ones with human forms.

82-fe6_403.png

There's tons of evil Dragons in human forms. When was the last time you saw a heroic Fie Dragon not named Bantu? Infact every male in the Manakete class barring Bantu is a bad guy.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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Just now, Emperor Hardin said:

Divine Dragons are far from the only ones with human forms.

There's tons of evil Dragons in human forms. When was the last time you saw a heroic Fie Dragon not named Bantu?

I know others can be in human form, but the ones that are normally portrayed in human form and are often allies are the ones I'm talking about, I know more Divine Dragons than normal ones. I don't even know who Bantu is, I think he's from Shadow Dragon, right? I have never played an Arachnea game, so..  :\

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2 minutes ago, Florina's #1 Fan said:

I know others can be in human form, but the ones that are normally portrayed in human form and are often allies are the ones I'm talking about, I know more Divine Dragons than normal ones. I don't even know who Bantu is, I think he's from Shadow Dragon, right? I have never played an Arachnea game, so..  :\

97-fe6_315.png

Enemy Manaketes are normally depicted in human form as well.

Fire Dragon link

Mage Dragon link

Bantu is both the only good Fire Dragon in the series and the only playable Male in the Manakete class.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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Just now, Emperor Hardin said:

97-fe6_315.png

Enemy Manaketes are normally depicted in human form as well.

Fire Dragon link

Mage Dragon link

I've never even seen him before >_< I'm sorry I don't know what I'm talking about, I guess. I really just play the 3DS games, I mean, that and Blazing, so I don't know much on dragons. I haven't finished Binding yet, so I had to search him.

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3 minutes ago, Florina's #1 Fan said:

I've never even seen him before >_< I'm sorry I don't know what I'm talking about, I guess. I really just play the 3DS games, I mean, that and Blazing, so I don't know much on dragons. I haven't finished Binding yet, so I had to search him.

You fight hundreds of Manaketes in Binding Blade, same with the Archanea games.

There are literally chapters that endlessly spawn manaketes for you to kill.

Though as mentioned, you never fight Divine Dragons, who are always depicted in conflict with the other manakete races and on humanity's side.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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11 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

You fight hundreds of Manaketes in Binding Blade, same with the Archanea games.

There are literally chapters that endlessly spawn manaketes for you to kill.

Though as mentioned, you never fight Divine Dragons, who are always depicted in conflict with the other manakete races and on humanity's side.

 Tiki originally starts out as an enemy, so yes, you can fight her.

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I'm gonna get crucified but here we goooooooooooooooooooooo

-Corrin, despite being not the best lord in the series, remains my favorite and nothing will convince me otherwise.

-Avatars help me get into the story better and I really enjoy having them in. Blazing Blade's "Avatar" doesn't count.

-Awakening was really fun and I got into the story of that one far more than any other FE.

-Conquest had the best story of all the Fates routes.

-I like Kozaki's designs, especially the ones he did for Heroes.

-Outside of some Tellius love, I'm largely fine with the Warriors roster.

-Kaga leaving was the best thing that happened to the franchise, however he does have a legacy that should be respected.

-Celica, Eirika, Lucina, and Corrin aren't bad lords.

-I'm tired of the final boss always being a goddamn dragon.

-Blazing Blade was boring and underwhelming to me, except I enjoyed Hector's route much more than the other two.

-The perfect FE for me would be somewhere between Conquest and SoV. I think the elements I'd enjoy most would be archers that can attack from up close, Fates style pair up, an Avatar, magic draining health, dungeons, exploration of your environment to get stuff, and Fates style amiibo support. And better LGBT romance options if we get that back.

-I'd really like another Tellius game, set hundreds or thousands of years after the previous two, like Awakening.

-Owain/Odin and Gray are fantastic and I love them.

-I want whoever designed Dead Man's Mire in SoV to die a horrible death. IMO it's the worst map in any FE game and is horrible and unbearable and I could literally go on a huge rant about it but I won't. That map burned our crops, poisoned our water supply and wrought a plague unto our houses.

Edited by Vespinae
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12 minutes ago, Vespinae said:

-I want whoever designed Dead Man's Mire in SoV to die a horrible death. IMO it's the worst map in any FE game and is horrible and unbearable and I could literally go on a huge rant about it but I won't. That map burned our crops, poisoned our water supply and wrought a plague unto our houses.

But did it also give us skinship?

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19 hours ago, Slumber said:

Caeda, the peggies and the Dancers are not comparable to Camilla, Tharja, or Charlotte. Or anything of that ilk.

Yes, Caeda and the Dancers ARE fanservice. But while the peggies inexplicably wear miniskirts, they're pretty tame. Caeda wears a full leather breastplate and high boots that are nearly pants. Similar deal with other peggies who wear armor plates and skirts. Dancers, meanwhile, at least have a contextual reason to wear skimpy clothes(Which is still far from underwear. They all wear skirts and wrapped tops. Hell, Lara doesn't even wear dancer garb in her game because she's a thief, meaning her default outfit that you see in the game is a shirt and a skirt). Free movement is also why Lewyn and Homer(And for Homer, barely a shirt at all) wear loose clothing, as they're also performers.

While Tharja and Charlotte ARE in their underwear. And Tharja's outfit makes negative sense, since she lives in a dry, arid environment, where skimpy clothes are actually more dangerous than helpful. The "well it's hot, wear less" argument doesn't make sense. The only time where less clothes are justified are in humid environments, which it definitely not Plegia. Charlotte's outfit only makes sense because she's specifically written to be fanservice, so there is some reason there, but it's still more extreme than the pre-Awakening games.

Camilla's outfit is just straight up dumb. Not only does form-fitting metal hurt women in the chest area more than help them, she specifically has a leather strap RIGHT between her boobs for the sole purpose of drawing your eyes in.

There's no excuse for Marth though. Put some damn pants on, you weirdo.

For nomadic civilizations, yes. Clothing that covered most of the skin was important to avoid burns. But Tharja comes from Plegia, a non nomadic, civilized nation. Likely based largely off of Egypt. Huge difference here.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

320px-Anubis_standing.svg.png

An example of what I mean by obvious Egyptian influences. Clearly the Dark Mage drew influences from Anubis.

More specifically, Egyptian upper class. Egyptian upper class had the luxury of indoor locations, shade, water. They could both keep from burns and keep themselves cool. What is one way to keep cool in heat if you dont have to worry about getting burnt? Wear less clothing. This is seen in many Egyptian hieroglyphs and art. Most of their people, at least as far as the upper class is concerned, wore little clothing.

On top of it, the best Egyptian cloths were sheer. You could see right through it. And while the women dressed a little more conservatively when compared to their male counterparts, the definition of conservative was still a lot less than today. There is actually evidence that some Egyptian women went topless, and it wasn't seen as obscene or inappropriate.

I wont argue Tharja has become an object of fan service in Fire Emblem over recent years, but her design is far more legitimate than Camilla for example. To be completely honest, I dont think Tharja was originally intended to be a "sexy" character. Look at her portrait for example. She covers herself up completely, and takes a much more shy/stand offish look. Outside of the way she acts towards Robin, she also is a very stand offish person that doesnt in any way exude any level of "sex appeal" that characters like Aversa and Camilla do. It was only in DLC and outside the game itself where she started gaining the status as a fanservicey character. The only time you really see the more revealing design that she has is in her battle model, and both males and females take a very similar desgin.

Again, I wont argue that Tharja has become an object of fan service in Fire Emblem, but she definitely wasnt originally. I kind of hate to see her wrapped up in that status, because I actually liked the Egyptian approach they had with Dark Mages and Plegia in Awakening. I would love to see an FE kingdom dive full into an Egyptian style.

EDIT: The first spoiler was supposed to contain the concept art of the male Dark Mage design.

Edited by Tolvir
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I'd say, about the only thing that wouldn't match is the choice of color. Skimpy or not, darker colors are not the sort of stuff you'd want in arid hot places (unless you go for the inverse, full-covering clothes that actually retain your perspiration within the boundaries of your outer body to cool down). Hence why you see depiction of Ancient Egyptian clothes as being mostly white. Still, we are talking of a world that has magic, so temperature regulating spells regardless of cloth color is something that could exist (considering the sort of stuff that hexes and curses can do in their setting, it's quite sensible).

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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8 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I'd say, about the only thing that wouldn't match is the choice of color. Skimpy or not, darker colors are not the sort of stuff you'd want in arid hot places (unless you go for the inverse, full-covering clothes that actually retain your perspiration within the boundaries of your outer body to cool down). Hence why you see depiction of Ancient Egyptian clothes as being mostly white. Still, we are talking of a world that has magic, so temperature regulating spells regardless of color is something that could exist (considering the sort of stuff that hexes and curses can do in their setting, it's quite sensible).

That is definitely true, but that could of easily been more of a factor from trying to look cool. When you think Dark Mages, Necromancers, Warlocks, etc you dont think of light colors, you think of dark colors. Blacks, dark blues, dark reds.

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Just now, Tolvir said:

That is definitely true, but that could of easily been more of a factor from trying to look cool. When you think Dark Mages, Necromancers, Warlocks, etc you dont think of light colors, you think of dark colors. Blacks, dark blues, dark reds.

Well, of course. I was just trying to make the Doylist-Watsonian differentiation.

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7 hours ago, Lau said:

Though I have to say, that sword girl from the new Xenoblade has an outfit that blows Camilla's away, those shorts are awful, and her breasts are too stiff.

I actually prefer Pyra's design over Camilla's. From the stuff we know about Xenoblade 2's lore, Pyra was essentially "born" like that. Her clothing isn't really meant to be armor, given that she transforms into a sword. And if it's anything like previous Xenoblade games, you'll be able to change the outfits of the characters and knowing that, there'll probably be an achievement for running around a city in nothing but underwear. Xenoblade X had that achievement.

But hey, i care more about Pyra's personality, and Xenoblade has a pretty good track record when it comes to characters (though i can't comment on X's characters, as i've never played due to a lack of a Wii U). You know what they say, never judge a book by it's cover.

 

1 hour ago, Vespinae said:

-I want whoever designed Dead Man's Mire in SoV to die a horrible death. IMO it's the worst map in any FE game and is horrible and unbearable and I could literally go on a huge rant about it but I won't. That map burned our crops, poisoned our water supply and wrought a plague unto our houses.

Unpopular opinion, the swamp maps in SoV aren't that bad. They're still leagues better than any map from FE4.

 

32 minutes ago, Tolvir said:

For nomadic civilizations, yes. Clothing that covered most of the skin was important to avoid burns. But Tharja comes from Plegia, a non nomadic, civilized nation. Likely based largely off of Egypt. Huge difference here.

  Hide contents

 

  Hide contents

320px-Anubis_standing.svg.png

An example of what I mean by obvious Egyptian influences. Clearly the Dark Mage drew influences from Anubis.

More specifically, Egyptian upper class. Egyptian upper class had the luxury of indoor locations, shade, water. They could both keep from burns and keep themselves cool. What is one way to keep cool in heat if you dont have to worry about getting burnt? Wear less clothing. This is seen in many Egyptian hieroglyphs and art. Most of their people, at least as far as the upper class is concerned, wore little clothing.

On top of it, the best Egyptian cloths were sheer. You could see right through it. And while the women dressed a little more conservatively when compared to their male counterparts, the definition of conservative was still a lot less than today. There is actually evidence that some Egyptian women went topless, and it wasn't seen as obscene or inappropriate.

I wont argue Tharja has become an object of fan service in Fire Emblem over recent years, but her design is far more legitimate than Camilla for example. To be completely honest, I dont think Tharja was originally intended to be a "sexy" character. Look at her portrait for example. She covers herself up completely, and takes a much more shy/stand offish look. Outside of the way she acts towards Robin, she also is a very stand offish person that doesnt in any way exude any level of "sex appeal" that characters like Aversa and Camilla do. It was only in DLC and outside the game itself where she started gaining the status as a fanservicey character. The only time you really see the more revealing design that she has is in her battle model, and both males and females take a very similar desgin.

Again, I wont argue that Tharja has become an object of fan service in Fire Emblem, but she definitely wasnt originally. I kind of hate to see her wrapped up in that status, because I actually liked the Egyptian approach they had with Dark Mages and Plegia in Awakening. I would love to see an FE kingdom dive full into an Egyptian style.

EDIT: The first spoiler was supposed to contain the concept art of the male Dark Mage design.

And today, i learned something new. While i didn't mind Tharja's design, and was instead bothered by her personality, i actually see her in a bit of a better light now.

Edited by Armagon
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19 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Unpopular opinion, the swamp maps in SoV aren't that bad. They're still leagues better than any map from FE4.

 

And today, i learned something new. While i didn't mind Tharja's design, and was instead bothered by her personality, i actually see her in a bit of a better light now.

Agreed on the swamps. I cant get into FE4, on try 5 now and I just dont like the really big open maps. Id take the swamps of Celica's part 4 over FE4's giant maps that take 4 rounds to even get anywhere any day of the week. At least I can finish the swamps in a timely manner, those FE4 maps take hours to complete.

As far as Tharja goes, I think she is an unfortunate victim of the community sexualizing her, and then IS just doing what they thought the fans wanted. As for her personality, I think a lot of people really jump on the bandwagon there. A lot of people think she abused Noire all the time, when in reality it was the alternate future Tharja that did so. On top of it, a lot of her "abuse" in the supports is mostly played up for comedic effect no different than your typical anime character slapping the shit out of someone. No one really considers that domestic abuse because its obviously meant for comedy. Its really no different here either.

Im not exactly advocating for her to win a mother of the year award, but she isnt as terrible as people like to think. The Robin support was a little creepy for sure, but I think that was overplayed too. Part of it was out of comedy and really trying to hit that "anime: feel that Awakening seemed to go for. And the community really blew that out of proportion. Granted, I think Rhajat was the way better version of it. It went a lot less with the creepy stalker concept, which was a much better idea.

I could probably write an entire post about Tharja and how the character has really been warped from her original version, but I have seen a few others go over it as well. Unfortunately I think IS has really caved into that concept for her too, since her Heroes version really goes all in with the borderline evil, creepy character the community thinks she is.

Edited by Tolvir
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8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I also think IS's modern sensibilities approach may be hindering its plots. Tellius for instance has Laguz-Beorc conflict, and while it is mentioned that Laguz were the oppressors at one point and hate on the Branded, the picture one feels of the situation in the game and not just the lore is that the Laguz are always the oppressed, and the Beorc always the oppressors. IS can't quite accept the (controversial) idea that the oppressed are capable of oppressing.

To semi-quote something I saw on the subreddit about the race themes in PoR and RD that's somewhat related, man do I love very in-your-face themes about race that have nothing to say but "racism is bad!" Especially in a world where races do actually have differences.

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6 hours ago, Skylorella Con said:

Um...i think calling it trash was a bit extreme. Haha! Sorry.

Awakening was also the game that got me in to the franchise but looking back at it now, it's pretty lack luster. It has a rather significant flaws and I didn't enjoy the story that much since act 1 and 2 were pretty predictable and act 3 was just all over the place.

I also dislike 2 of the 3 lords Lucina being the exception. Some of the missions were pretty boring because the map design was very simple and bland for the large section of the game. Most of them just felt like random encounters.

It's still a good game but not something I enjoyed tbh.

It's cool, hyperbole is a major part of our internet so I've gotten used to looking past it.

Eh, there were flaws, yeah, both seen in hindsight like the lack of full voice acting and actual game flaws like the female Einherjar talking when you use Japanese Audio despite being supposed to be silent, but in the end the good outweighed the bad for me personally. I will admit that some of the missions felt boring, and I have mentioned before I didn't really appreciate the lack of any objectives besides raze the enemy army to the ground, but then we got to SoV where several of the fights were literally just minor skirmishes with unmemorable bosses that were kind of thrown in there to just give you more battles to do. Also, it helps to remember they thought this would be the last game, and consequently weren't necessarily trying to make it super amazing, they just wanted to have fun, so yeah, flaws were of course inevitable. My personal opinion is that Owain redeems the game from any and all flaws, in case anyone was wondering.

6 hours ago, Lau said:

Awh no, I'm not gonna ignore you. You lucky man you, not having to deal with celebrities and the like. Yeah, I guess it is all about freedom of speech and all that crap in real life, but it's just some food for thought, I guess. Ah well, this is the world we live in.

Eh, it's not too hard on paper, though it helps that Serenes is literally the closest to social networking I even have access to let alone am interested in(unless you count DeviantArt, but I'm literally only on there so I can post my writing so I usually don't). Basically, stop using a TV for anything other than gaming or DVDs and quit any social network sites you happen to be a part of except to use them as save-data-backups for your mobile games like KHuX or Brave Frontier. Admittedly, that's much harder to do in reality than it is in theory, so I get not everyone can just make that their lifestyle, but I do feel rather free not having to deal with any of that. What surprises me the most is how weirded out people get when they realize I'm perfectly happy staying 'out of the loop' whatever that's supposed to mean.

Yeah, I wish I could get people to stop doing that, but at least in some cases there are people who dress like that specifically to attract attention, so calling them out on it is really giving them exactly what they want. Then there are people who literally just don't care and would go nude if they were allowed to because it somehow isn't that big a deal to them, and then there are people who mistake dressing like a slut for 'being confident about their body' and think people will see them as confident or some other positive opinion if they dress like that, plus the people who actually have no idea those shorts bother people because they somehow never noticed they outgrew them. I've had to deal with all of them, so I've kind of gotten used to not being able to say anything about it, especially as my best friend was in one of those categories a long while back and so I had to tread really carefully around her for a while.

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3 hours ago, Tolvir said:

For nomadic civilizations, yes. Clothing that covered most of the skin was important to avoid burns. But Tharja comes from Plegia, a non nomadic, civilized nation. Likely based largely off of Egypt. Huge difference here.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

  Reveal hidden contents

320px-Anubis_standing.svg.png

An example of what I mean by obvious Egyptian influences. Clearly the Dark Mage drew influences from Anubis.

More specifically, Egyptian upper class. Egyptian upper class had the luxury of indoor locations, shade, water. They could both keep from burns and keep themselves cool. What is one way to keep cool in heat if you dont have to worry about getting burnt? Wear less clothing. This is seen in many Egyptian hieroglyphs and art. Most of their people, at least as far as the upper class is concerned, wore little clothing.

On top of it, the best Egyptian cloths were sheer. You could see right through it. And while the women dressed a little more conservatively when compared to their male counterparts, the definition of conservative was still a lot less than today. There is actually evidence that some Egyptian women went topless, and it wasn't seen as obscene or inappropriate.

I wont argue Tharja has become an object of fan service in Fire Emblem over recent years, but her design is far more legitimate than Camilla for example. To be completely honest, I dont think Tharja was originally intended to be a "sexy" character. Look at her portrait for example. She covers herself up completely, and takes a much more shy/stand offish look. Outside of the way she acts towards Robin, she also is a very stand offish person that doesnt in any way exude any level of "sex appeal" that characters like Aversa and Camilla do. It was only in DLC and outside the game itself where she started gaining the status as a fanservicey character. The only time you really see the more revealing design that she has is in her battle model, and both males and females take a very similar desgin.

Again, I wont argue that Tharja has become an object of fan service in Fire Emblem, but she definitely wasnt originally. I kind of hate to see her wrapped up in that status, because I actually liked the Egyptian approach they had with Dark Mages and Plegia in Awakening. I would love to see an FE kingdom dive full into an Egyptian style.

EDIT: The first spoiler was supposed to contain the concept art of the male Dark Mage design.

A very well written and argued argument. It actually answers some of my (discarded) hypotheses from before. Not to mention I did admit to Volug and Nailah having appropriate outfits earlier as well. And always knew there was some Egyptian in Tharja's design, but I guess I never expanded on its implications fully. You include history with some detailed analysis, which I like. I'll accept it on verity!

Plus, I don't want to be bitter about Tharja and hate. No matter how much people like being bitter and hating, they shouldn't, because it ultimately makes you feel bad. Unless they're talking bitter food or very clearly bad things, like murder, and suffering, and slavery, and illness, and poverty, and injustice in general, then you have the right to hate and like bitterness. Your argument lets me cut down on my unnecessary hating and bitterness, so I'll pragmatically accept it too.

 

On the characters getting wrongly portrayed thing- I can understand this very clearly. When I played FFVII as a grown individual, I thought Cloud would be all emo from what the fanbase would have you believe, but he wasn't. Cloud was actually pretty likable, cool, talented, a tad stoic/silent and bland I'll admit, but he was very good. He did have a psyche issue- but it was sad and not emo, not as nuanced as Fei Fong Wong's issues, but thats beyond the comprehension of most mortal ken, Cloud is more digestible for the masses. Maybe the later games and stuff made Cloud emo, but I don't care about Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts, only FFVII (and I guess I'd like to try Crisis Core too). Tharja, Cloud, Lucina (I heard some good arguments the wifeypon thing is not inherent to her) should form an alliance "Video Game Characters Against Being Ruined by Fanbases".

 

On the child abuse, well it is comedic, it isn't treated like Hilda's niece abuse, that is certain. So I guess it's worth taking with a grain of salt. However, I don't want to get into a Serious Discussion argument, but I think to some extent, one might be able to argue that portrayals, even if comedic in intention, may influence how people view serious events (or their perspectives on peoples and their practices) that don't happen to them. But again, I don't want to start a argument here.

 

And while these are rather irrelevant, I just want to add that: One, the Dark Mage outfit isn't appropriate to Fates since Nohr lacks a desert (Odin joins in the Ice Tribe chapter of all things), and Ophelia just shouldn't be wearing it. And two, the outfit would be better in Awakening if we saw normal Plegians in similar clothes, and not just evil people.

 

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

Xenoblade has a pretty good track record when it comes to characters

True, but I just want to add that while the clothing was fine in both games- Xenoblade's jiggle physics were voyeuristic. Run three feet with Sharla and stop and watch them bounce.

 

6 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

The Manakete/human conflicts have both oppressing. 

Though then again, the Divine Dragon tribe of Manaketes are never depicted in the wrong, especially after Kaga.

On the Divine Dragons. Duma doesn't get the best of portrayals, though I don't think we ever see him healthy, and degeneration is not willful evil. Also, IS did Evil Light and Good Dark with RD, and even two big black enemies- Dheg and the BK, fight with light's blessings, only big Ashy and little Izuka are dark. But they very clearly didn't want to do that again with 13-15.

As for Medeus and the Scouring, they're both lore only. While I want deluges upon deluges of lore in FE, I don't think the nuance of these conflicts is ever felt or explored. Does the game do a good job of mustering empathy (not necessarily sympathy) towards Medeus, the lone Earth Dragon who stood by Naga, only to have reason to think his trust in humanity was misplaced? Are we ever asked to critically question whether Harmut and co. were in the wrong? (Of course not, we only learn the truth in the penultimate chapter! For the rest of the game, they're unabashed heroes.) Does Marth or Roy, the princely princes of royal mannerisms they are, ever issue PoR-17 Sanaki-like apologies for humanity's sins?

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6 hours ago, Florina's #1 Fan said:

What R word? Do you mean-

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ransomed?

I mean, Genealogy's fan translation basically says that Deirdre was going to get raped, and it sounded like Aideen was being threatened with it. I mean, I know that's done by the fans, but it's as close as fans can get it. Nintendo in Japan apparently didn't mind covering that sort of thing.

I don't know the exact words they used in Japanese but I wouldn't be surprised if they used imprecise terminology that the fan translators decided to state bluntly. It's not that implications of someone meaning to rape or sell a woman into sexual slavery are rare (Valter makes his intentions pretty clear) but the exact wording that someone will be raped has never been said in an official English release, and I have my doubts about the japanese version.

3 hours ago, Tolvir said:

As far as Tharja goes, I think she is an unfortunate victim of the community sexualizing her, and then IS just doing what they thought the fans wanted

Her roster description in the Japanese version states that she "has the best body in the army" and her Harvest Scramble conversation with Nowi has the latter talking about her "boingy bits". I think they knew the appeal of Tharja's design. She follows the appeal of Camilla, that of a busty woman with revealing clothes and an unhealthy attachment to the player.

3 hours ago, Tolvir said:

On top of it, a lot of her "abuse" in the supports is mostly played up for comedic effect no different than your typical anime character slapping the shit out of someone. No one really considers that domestic abuse because its obviously meant for comedy

Awakening is definitely takes a "gag anime" approach to some of its characters, and while I recognize the comedic intent, there are also serious elements to her character which blur the line. Why should we take some parts seriously and dismiss others as "it's just a dumb anime thing"? Peri is another such character where you're simultaneously being asked to treat her psychosis as a joke but also accept that the ever serious Xander saw nothing wrong with her.

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