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Humor in Fire Emblem the good and the bad


Locke087
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Something that has been on my mind as of late is about humor in Fire Emblem games the games it’s had many approaches to humor's over the year and in more recent years has had an increased concentration of it. I know humor is a very subjective subject and a hard thing to master but I still think this would be a interesting thing to discuss where Fire Emblem succeeds and fails in its humor.

I think by and large Fire Emblem is not very funny It's humor by enlarged does not appeal to me especially in the newer games and I find that it's humor can be especially damaging in many cases because if you don't like a joke it's really hard to ignore because they shove it in your face a lot of times, didn't think that Kellam joke was funny the first time well too bad you're going to hear it another 200 times. I think one of the bigger corporates here of why humor can often be grating in Fire Emblem is the special quotes that are uniquely tuned to some characters because even if you even if don’t view their conversations you're going to hear their particular brand of humor over and over again. 

But then again there's been Fire Emblem convos that have been actually really funny, one really good example I think at least is Dart and Farina’s Support Chain in FE 7 not only is it funny how Dart thinks of treasure but it also is revealing of the character of Fargus and his crew.  Pure pointless humor can also be cool as well I usually don't find Odin that that funny but in the support with Felicia he is kind of hilarious just because of how surreal it is of Felicia just pouring hot water over him it's ridiculous yet fitting to both characters and they play off each other well.  This is when I think it's humor is best when it's more dynamic then static in nature. Take Kellam for example his joke is isn't it weird that this Knight in massive armor is hard to see and notice, the major problem with this joke is that doesn't have that many applications that really change it and doesn’t it play off other people's interaction very well, it is going to end up mostly the same therefore the joke is really one note.  The humor is good when both parties can play up each other and add more to the joke beyond the surface level joke that has already been made.

If FE wants to continue its growing concentration towards humor I think it needs to move towards characters that bounce off each other to humor situations (like Soren and Aimee, see Item Shop), rather than characters that are in and of themselves a joke because they can be very repetitive and in the many cases that they simply do not bounce off of the character in front of them they come off as flat.

Edited by Locke087
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I consider intentionally making characters bad with little to no redeeming factors for the sake of a joke to be a poor form of humor.

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10 minutes ago, Locke087 said:

 

If FE wants to continue its growing concentration towards humor I think it needs to move towards characters that bounce off each other to humor situations (like Soren and Aimee, see Item Shop), rather than characters that are in and of themselves a joke because they can be very repetitive and in the many cases that they simply do not bounce off of the character in front of them they come off as flat.

I agree with this. When I think of funny moments in FE, it's character interactions: Soren/Ike/Aimee, Serra/Erk, L'Arachel/Dozla/Rennac. The 3DS games rely far too much on "look at this funny guy isn't he hilarious?" and repeating the same joke over and over and less on working comedy into interactions between its cast, though there are still a few good examples like the Chrom posters.

For the record I just finished watching an FE5 LP and omg Shannam/Marita is probably the funniest thing I've seen in the series, again, because of the interaction and not for any one gimmick/aspect of either of the characters.

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I agree. Comedy is something that has to come naturally—it cannot be forced. Doing so makes it feel cheap and leaves a bad aftertaste. I tend to place both comedy and horror in that category.

The first thing FE needs to work on is making concrete characters. And I mean characters with proper personality. Not walking gimmicks that faceplant when you take away that defining "trait" from under their feet. Then, they can dabble with how the characters interact with each other.

One particular support I thought was entertaining was Cordelia's support with Gregor. For me, the humor mainly came from the unexpectedness of Gregor apparently being well-versed in the ways of courtship, along with how eagerly the genius Cordelia begins to take his advice. This also happens to be one of the few supports that I thought the S-rank wasn't too jarring or farfetched.

Edited by saisymbolic
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I'm in agreement that characters should not be walking jokes/weird gimmicks. Ilyana I do detest, but Kieran I'm okay with- he just seems to be a bit more rounded out than Ily and actually gets some good meaningful discussion done with Oscar in PoR. Gatrie I generally don't like that much because he is a bit flat, but him and Shinon form a good combination together and in this case we get a better understanding of the two individual and their relationship to each other.

I don't want IS copy/pasting any comedic act that went over well in one game directly into another. I know there are only so many personalities and forms of humor and not everyone has played the older games, but don't make things exactly the same. For example, Joshua-L'Arachel and Makalov-Bastian supports both have humor built around gambling, but the characters involved are fairly distinct and the humor which results isn't repetitive between the two. 

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I think the lack of humor in some of the earlier titles was to the series' detriment. Dialogue already didn't flow as naturally as it should have, making it sound like people were having two separate monologues rather than a dialogue at the worst of times, and the lack of humor could make the characters come across as uncharming and cold.

Naturally, this doesn't mean I think the focus on humor should be felt everywhere, nor that I'm a fan of walking gimmicks. A good story can balance out serious moments and characters with humor, and the best example of this that I can think of is the Ace Attorney series, which can naturally and convincingly completely change the tone of an entire scene at the drop of a hat.

I think Echoes manages to strike a nice balance between being serious and lighthearted, with convincing dialogue between characters when it doesn't relate to the plot.

Edited by Thane
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I would like to say I don't find one note gimmicky characters funny, but truthfully I find Shannam to be hilarious. It's just such a ridiculous idea. It'd be like someone risking their lives by becoming a Che Guevara impersonator just to pick up chicks. The fact that his stats are terrible but they still make him useful with Bargain is great too (and also in Holy War he is so clueless as to try and pass off a Draco Shield as Balmung despite being...well a shield and not a sword). It's just some fantastic levity in the generally depressing world that is Jugdral.

Also I'm not sure if it was even intentionally a joke, but I've recently realized just how funny it is that Cutozov can't stop the actual Shanon from stealing Balmung because he happened to carelessly misplace his Fenrir tome. https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=148463

Spoiler

 

Edited by Jotari
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I think the biggest issue with humor in FE as of recently is that some characters are made for one joke and one joke only.  Setsuna's made to be totally aloof to the point that she always steps in traps, Effie's obsessed eating and training to an absurd level, and Asugi just loves sweets.  They just wind up feeling like filler (which is probably exactly what they are, given Fates' massive roster); you could probably combine these gimmicks to make a somewhat well-rounded character.  And it also comes from IS's odd need to pair everyone with everyone simply so that people can ship characters any way they want to.  You get characters interacting who just don't have any chemistry.

But there are good moments from the recent games, too.  The common theme with the good jokes is they typically come from well-rounded characters.  Frederick, for example, lends himself well to various instances of humor which are varied enough for it to stay fresh.  Or at least their one-notedness just works all around.  Like Arthur; you could see him trying to interact with pretty much all the characters he interacts with, and he has such an indomitable optimism in the face of the terrible circumstances he finds himself in that he just never grows tiring.

So basically, the jokes just need to either be varied or applicable to most situations.  It also helps to throw in a curveball or two.  Like in the Harvest Festival DLC, Miriel having hallucinations about Sumia actually being a sociopath who trips up a bunch just to garner affection and sympathy from others.  Just spice things up with something unexpected.

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54 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I would like to say I don't find one note gimmicky characters funny, but truthfully I find Shannam to be hilarious. It's just such a ridiculous idea. It'd be like someone risking their lives by becoming a Che Guevara impersonator just to pick up chicks. The fact that his stats are terrible but they still make him useful with Bargain is great too (and also in Holy War he is so clueless as to try and pass off a Draco Shield as Balmung despite being...well a shield and not a sword). It's just some fantastic levity in the generally depressing world that is Jugdral.

Also I'm not sure if it was even intentionally a joke, but I've recently realized just how funny it is that Cutozov can't stop the actual Shanon from stealing Balmung because he happened to carelessly misplace his Fenrir tome. https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=148463

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Shannam's real lucky that Mareeta's a descendant of Oda. Otherwise she probably wouldn't have been able to learn Sol and he probably would have been found out to be a fraud... by another person.

Shannam's a much better execution of Samuel. Probably my favorite comic relief character in the franchise, especially given how dour T776 is.

Also, for a more recent example, Gray's pretty good at making me laugh.

The more the games rely on humor, the less I tend to be able to put up with, and the harder it is to tell what's supposed to be actual comedy versus what's supposed to be legitimate character traits. Like, Peri. Is Peri supposed to be funny? Is her obsession with blood and killing supposed to be for jokes? Her gimmick is played up in the same manner of every other comedic characters in Awakening and Fates. But I can't comprehend what's actually supposed to be funny about Peri.

Edited by Slumber
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I found Sain absolutely hilarious. And Gatrie, so pretty much the "unfortunate ladies' man" characters are hilarious to me. That item shop thing with Soren and Aimee is gold and one of my favorite parts in a video game ever.

I agree that the stuff in Awakening and Fates that was supposed to be humor seems forced.

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1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

Frederick, for example, lends himself well to various instances of humor which are varied enough for it to stay fresh.

One of the many reasons I LOVE Freddy so. <3

29 minutes ago, Dragoncat said:

I found Sain absolutely hilarious. And Gatrie, so pretty much the "unfortunate ladies' man" characters are hilarious to me. That item shop thing with Soren and Aimee is gold and one of my favorite parts in a video game ever.

I agree that the stuff in Awakening and Fates that was supposed to be humor seems forced.

And pretty much this post too, on all counts. Aimee, Soren, and Ike are comedy gold when they have a conversation together. lol Sain is my favorite Elibe character by a long shot because of how funny, yet rather serious he is. And I like the womanizers in general because they tend to be hilarious and yet have some interesting depth to them.

Awakening and Fates's casts just focus too much on fanservice and dumb jokes for the most part and sacrifice depth and development for these things.

There are gems, because as I've said, I love Frederick to so many pieces for a bunch of reasons. :P I also really enjoyed Silas and Ryoma. But even Ryoma doesn't really have a whole lot of personality or anything. He just happens to be a badass who didn't get butchered by a forced joke or gimmick. Cordelia is another character who I felt was pretty decent in this regard, though I still think her thing with Chrom is a bit forced (not as badly as some other gimmicks though).

I have a general rule of thumb I like to follow when I create or critique characters. If I can sum up a character like three words or less, that's a bad character. If this character needs several words and even sentences, that's much better.

Going back to Frederick, I can never describe him in just a few words! If I try, it just doesn't do his character justice. He needs a full sentence, maybe two. Very serious overachiever obsessed with his retainer duties, fitness, and training. Hates bear meat, loves campfires and knitting, and hates training even though he's committed himself to doing it a lot. See, I can't truly describe his personality without saying all that.

But let's look at...Sumia. Clumsy animal lover. That pretty much sums her personality up. Not very good at all.

Edited by Anacybele
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47 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

 

I have a general rule of thumb I like to follow when I create or critique characters. If I can sum up a character like three words or less, that's a bad character. If this character needs several words and even sentences, that's much better.

Going back to Frederick, I can never describe him in just a few words! If I try, it just doesn't do his character justice. He needs a full sentence, maybe two. Very serious overachiever obsessed with his retainer duties, fitness, and training. Hates bear meat, loves campfires and knitting, and hates training even though he's committed himself to doing it a lot. See, I can't truly describe his personality without saying all that.

But let's look at...Sumia. Clumsy animal lover. That pretty much sums her personality up. Not very good at all.

I get what you're saying with this part but I don't think it's that simple. You could do the same thing the other way around: Fred is an obsessive overachieving retainer. Sumia is a clumsy lover of animals and literature who cares greatly for her friends and never stops trying to be better despite her self-consciousness.

A better way to put it is maybe that a bad character is one that's dominated by one or two gimmicky traits that overshadow all other aspects of their personality. And that is something I see a lot more of in Awakening and Fates than in other games, though granted there are cases in those as well.

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4 minutes ago, Book Bro said:

I get what you're saying with this part but I don't think it's that simple. You could do the same thing the other way around: Fred is an obsessive overachieving retainer. Sumia is a clumsy lover of animals and literature who cares greatly for her friends and never stops trying to be better despite her self-consciousness.

A better way to put it is maybe that a bad character is one that's dominated by one or two gimmicky traits that overshadow all other aspects of their personality. And that is something I see a lot more of in Awakening and Fates than in other games, though granted there are cases in those as well.

Not really. "Cares greatly for friends" can be applied to like 90% of FE characters. And Frederick is obsessive, but only over a specific thing, his duties. Not obsessive in general. So that's why I see it difficult to describe someone like Frederick in just a few words, but not Sumia.

That's not to say your way isn't good too though. It still works.

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I think the most important thing is just giving the characters something besides the joke.

L'arachel may be completely out there but she's more then just a wanabe hero. She also very aware of her duties as a princess and just because she's a bit too attached to Eirika doesn't make it any less genuine. She also knows when to speak sense occasionally rather then always keeping the hero act up. Bastian also seems like he came walking out of a Shakespeare play but when looking past that its very clear that a very good strategist and politician is still there. 

In contrast Illyana has nothing besides the hunger joke and as a result she never becomes anything more then that.

This goes for the newer games too. Arthur may constantly shout his two wacky gimmicks from the rooftops but even he knows when its time to put away the jester cap when its needed. Whether its his supports with Azura or him going into such details about his heroism that it becomes clear he's just a great guy instead of just a fool. 

Setsuna doesn't have such moments and so she will never be anything more then her gimmick. 

Its also important to ensure the jokes are also something to actually laugh about. Henry, a hero with a sketchy idea about what collateral damage means can be very funny but Peri repeatedly displaying she's a mass murderer of innocent people isn't. 

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16 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

 

Its also important to ensure the jokes are also something to actually laugh about. Henry, a hero with a sketchy idea about what collateral damage means can be very funny but Peri repeatedly displaying she's a mass murderer of innocent people isn't. 

Oh man, how could I forget about Henry? Much better than Peri. MUCH BETTER. I love his recruitment. Although if the risen could have sex and have little risen kids, that's a big problem for humanity lol.

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Whoever's idea it was to give Fire Emblem a Greek Chorus needs a raise. Gray/Tobin and Boey/Mae were the best parts of the game. Clair on her own also never fails to amuse.

Spoiler

Except that one time her actress nailed being incredibly distressed.

 

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I think that, when talking about humor in the series, one has to strike a delicate balance. After all, this series is about things like war, death, rigid social order, politics, tyrannical rulers, racism/prejudice, etc. Of course, it never gets so exaggerated that it goes straight-up grimdark (this isn't quite ASOIAF...though Jugdral starts to lean that way) with any of this stuff and it's pretty light on it, all things considered, but in general, the themes it deals with are serious, mature themes. A little comic relief from all of that is good, but...sometimes I feel like some of the newer games get just a little carried away with trying to make the audience laugh at the expense of atmosphere and immersion.

Awakening is a story involving an apocalyptic future having been destroyed by a dark entity and an evil cult, and a traumatized young woman coming back to prevent everyone she knows and loves from dying horribly, or worse. But some of the lol!wacky antics we get in that game sort of push the whole "fighting for everyone's future against an evil apocalypse dragon and cult" to the background to focus on a wacky, sometimes cartoonish style of humor. Ehh...it just...doesn't mesh very well in my opinion, and a lot of those moments reek of "trying too hard." (And I do like Awakening a lot, as a disclaimer. The comedy is just...eh, imo.)

I think I said this before somewhere, but there were times when I felt like Awakening (and to a lesser extent, Fates) was more of a parody of a fantasy rather than a straight fantasy story. Shadows of Valentia had a few of those moments, but in my opinion the writing quality of the serious moments still held it together better.

Like a lot of people, I think that Shadows of Valentia had what I consider the best balance between humor and seriousness. Gray and Tobin and Mae and Boey were pretty great with their commentary on things, and never was I pulled out of the stakes, nor was I ever taken out of the plot because someone had to have a wacky moment talking about putting up posters of their liege naked. (Seriously, what the hell, Frederick? o.o)

On 7/27/2017 at 10:41 AM, Thane said:

I think the lack of humor in some of the earlier titles was to the series' detriment. Dialogue already didn't flow as naturally as it should have, making it sound like people were having two separate monologues rather than a dialogue at the worst of times, and the lack of humor could make the characters come across as uncharming and cold.

I think this sort of thing was due to the writing style, which was a lot less casual and more...what's the word? They seemed to be going for a more old-world fantasy-ish style, rather than the much more relaxed style of, say, Awakening and Fates. For the most part characters' diction was more formal/noble, what have you. Even the more casual characters never got our modern-world level casual.

Now, of course, whether you prefer either style is up to you. Honestly, it does jar me a bit when someone who's supposed to be living in a medieval-type fantasy world starts dropping modern sayings and jokes. (Of course, I'm someone who flinches a bit when a fantasy character (in a non-parody) goes, "I'm not going to lie...") Kinda...takes me out of the experience. I find the earlier games diction' a bit more believable in a lot of ways, even if it could be called somewhat stiff.

On 7/27/2017 at 1:58 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

I think the most important thing is just giving the characters something besides the joke.

Yup, this is pretty much my feelings on the matter. I don't mind gimmick characters, so much as they're something outside of their gimmick. Which is why I'll always appreciate Haar and Kieran, but despise Ilyana and dislike Setsuna.

On 7/27/2017 at 1:58 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

Its also important to ensure the jokes are also something to actually laugh about. Henry, a hero with a sketchy idea about what collateral damage means can be very funny but Peri repeatedly displaying she's a mass murderer of innocent people isn't. 

I dislike Peri as a character intensely, but I like what she shows us: How to fail at making a darkly comedic character.

Peri, I think, is a horribly failed attempt at shock humor or black humor, whereas Henry nails black humor spectacularly. Henry works because he's much more playful and ambiguous in his execution - he's "out there" and doesn't know proper social graces,  he talks about body horror and has all the signs that point to him possibly being unstable, but a lot of the time it seems like he's joking. We only get vague references to so-called heinous acts he's done (punishing the people who hurt his wolf, and in that case, you could argue that it was, if not justified, understandable). Not to mention, he doesn't go out and target innocent people, so he stays funny in a "Uh... What the hell is this guy?" sort of way.

Peri is the exact opposite...she tries to put up a playful act, with her childish speech, but it falls flat, because with we have repeated confirmation that she actually is dangerous. Peri isn't joking. She's 100% serious about murdering innocent people and does so over the course of the story, so it stops being funny and just gets disturbing. (And another thing, innocent people; the people she murders have done nothing to her whatsoever. Innocents getting brutally murdered is not funny, unless it's completely over the top and ridiculous. A serial killer isn't over the top and ridiculous.) Not to mention the sheer amount of character derailment the people she supports with go through, but I digress...

p.s. i totally wasn't gone for a long time or anything, let me just return stealthily, no one noticed my absence

Edited by Extrasolar
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1 minute ago, Extrasolar said:

I think this sort of thing was due to the writing style, which was a lot less casual and more...what's the word? They seemed to be going for a more old-world fantasy-ish style, rather than the much more relaxed style of, say, Awakening and Fates. For the most part characters' diction was more formal/noble, what have you. Even the more casual characters never got our modern-world level casual.

Now, of course, whether you prefer either style is up to you. Honestly, it does jar me a bit when someone who's supposed to be living in a medieval-type fantasy world starts dropping modern sayings and jokes. (Of course, I'm someone who flinches a bit when a fantasy character (in a non-parody starts goes, "I'm not going to lie..." Kinda...takes me out of the experience. I find the earlier games diction' a bit more believable in a lot of ways, even if it could be called somewhat stiff.

I see your point, but I find it equally jarring to match only the speech to the setting and not values, beliefs and politics, like Fire Emblem usually does not do. It's a heavily romanticized fantasy anime Europe, so I would say less fluid dialogue hurts the series more than it helps.

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1 hour ago, Thane said:

I see your point, but I find it equally jarring to match only the speech to the setting and not values, beliefs and politics, like Fire Emblem usually does not do. It's a heavily romanticized fantasy anime Europe, so I would say less fluid dialogue hurts the series more than it helps.

You do have a point in that FE settings are heavily romanticized in comparison to our world, but I still think that they have the classic high-fantasy atmosphere. Something like LOTR is heavily romanticized in comparison to our world (and that's supposed to take place in the past of our world), but Tolkien went that extra mile and gave everyone those classic old speech patterns that crop up in really old medieval and pre-medieval literature to help set the tone.

FE as a whole never struck me in any way as modern, so I prefer the older style speech. It's like you're reading from an older novel, with everyone speaking in a more formal way. Since FE as a whole seems to have something of a framing device as historical stories being told long after the fact (why there are character endings talking about "x was recorded in the pages of history," etc), I think it makes more sense.

While a lot of their beliefs definitely don't mirror the exact attitudes people in our medieval world had, they do have a fair amount of outdated social beliefs in their own worlds -- for instance, like the rampant classism that we see in Tellius and especially Shadows of Valentia, with commoners being looked down upon or blocked from important offices. We get racism and prejudice in Elibe (against the Sacaens), Tellius (against the laguz), and even in Jugdral people look down upon Verdane as barbaric.

People are much more concerned with stuff like regicide and politics than the plight of normal people. People are more willing to use violence as a means to an end, and while we of course get characters that protest and want to change the world for the better (Alm vs. the classism, and the like) a lot of characters are coldly pragmatic about it if they mention it at all, in a "that's just the way the world works" sort of way.

Sexism is missing for the most part. But of course, having anyone but one-off villains like that guy in Mia's backstory being sexist and, for example, keeping women out of armies completely, would alienate half of the games' player base.

Edited by Extrasolar
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1 hour ago, Extrasolar said:

I think that, when talking about humor in the series, one has to strike a delicate balance. After all, this series is about things like war, death, rigid social order, politics, tyrannical rulers, racism/prejudice, etc. Of course, it never gets so exaggerated that it goes straight-up grimdark (this isn't quite ASOIAF...though Jugdral starts to lean that way) with any of this stuff and it's pretty light on it, all things considering, but in general, the themes it deals with are serious, mature themes. A little comic relief from all of that is good, but...sometimes I feel like some of the newer games get just a little carried away with trying to make the audience laugh at the expense of atmosphere and immersion.

Awakening is a story involving an apocalyptic future having been destroyed by a dark entity and an evil cult, and a traumatized young woman coming back to prevent everyone she knows and loves from dying horribly, or worse. But some of the lol!wacky antics we get in that game sort of push the whole "fighting for everyone's future against an evil apocalypse dragon and cult" to the background to focus on a wacky, sometimes cartoonish style of humor. Ehh...it just...doesn't mesh very well in my opinion, and a lot of the moments to reek of "trying too hard." (And I do like Awakening a lot, as a disclaimer. The comedy is just...eh, imo.)

This is one of my major complaints about the scripts for the newer games. I'm not sure if this is a problem present in Japanese as well or if it's a localization issue, but 13 and 14 have dialogue that is just really jarring with the setting and especially coming from previous games where the dialogue was more formal and "proper" to the medieval setting. There's too much slang, memes, and dialogue that tries to force a laugh for my liking in the 3DS games -- SoV is much better but still has stuff like Mae speaking like a modern preppy teenager.

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I'm going to agree with the majority sentiment here that characters should be written as people instead of vehicles for a joke. Micaiah's snark about Ike being the father of Sothe's children is more memorable than 90% of the comedy in Fates/Awakening because it actually feels like something she as a person would say. It's not the writers shouting at me "Look at these quirky anime characters!"

I feel that Fates/Awakening have a difficult time taking themselves seriously. To give one example, in Conquest, all of the Nohrian and Hoshidan siblings meet up and rather than address the huge war going on and how to prevent it, we have Corrin chuckling at the comical interactions of his two families. A story doesn't need to be grimdark serious 24/7 but it should understand the gravity of the situation characters are in.

On 07/31/2017 at 2:06 AM, Extrasolar said:

Peri, I think, is a horribly failed attempt at shock humor or black humor, whereas Henry nails black humor spectacularly. Henry works because he's much more playful and ambiguous in his execution - he's "out there" and doesn't know proper social graces,  he talks about body horror and has all the signs that point to him possibly being unstable, but a lot of the time it seems like he's joking. We only get vague references to so-called heinous acts he's done (punishing the people who hurt his wolf, and in that case, you could argue that it was, if not justified, understandable). Not to mention, he doesn't go out and target innocent people, so he stays funny in a "Uh... What the hell is this guy?" sort of way.

Peri is the exact opposite...she tries to put up a playful act, with her childish speech, but it falls flat, because with we have repeated confirmation that she actually is dangerous. Peri isn't joking. She's 100% serious about murdering innocent people and does so over the course of the story, so it stops being funny and just gets disturbing. (And another thing, innocent people; the people she murders have done nothing to her whatsoever. Innocents getting brutally murdered is not funny, unless it's completely over the top and ridiculous. A serial killer isn't over the top and ridiculous.) Not to mention the sheer amount of character derailment the people she supports with go through, but I digress...

This completely. There can be some refuge in audacity but when you make people legitimately horrible and play it off like a joke (especially when it contradicts established characterization of others) you failed to write a character that reasonably exists in the world. Henry is quirky and amusing. Peri is dangerous and little better than the villains we're supposed to despise.

On 07/31/2017 at 3:18 AM, Book Bro said:

This is one of my major complaints about the scripts for the newer games. I'm not sure if this is a problem present in Japanese as well or if it's a localization issue, but 13 and 14 have dialogue that is just really jarring with the setting and especially coming from previous games where the dialogue was more formal and "proper" to the medieval setting. There's too much slang, memes, and dialogue that tries to force a laugh for my liking in the 3DS games -- SoV is much better but still has stuff like Mae speaking like a modern preppy teenager.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this. It pulls me out of the story to hear modern styles of speech, especially when it is uttered side by side with more fantasy/archaic styles, as we saw sometimes in SoV.

Regarding Japanese to English, a lot of the Japanese text I've read in games is pretty dry when compared to the English, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if the modernisms we see in FE are mostly the product of the localization team.

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On 2017-07-30 at 7:34 PM, Extrasolar said:

You do have a point in that FE settings are heavily romanticized in comparison to our world, but I still think that they have the classic high-fantasy atmosphere. Something like LOTR is heavily romanticized in comparison to our world (and that's supposed to take place in the past of our world), but Tolkien went that extra mile and gave everyone those classic old speech patterns that crop up in really old medieval and pre-medieval literature to help set the tone.

FE as a whole never struck me in any way as modern, so I prefer the older style speech. It's like you're reading from an older novel, with everyone speaking in a more formal way. Since FE as a whole seems to have something of a framing device as historical stories being told long after the fact (why there are character endings talking about "x was recorded in the pages of history," etc), I think it makes more sense.

While a lot of their beliefs definitely don't mirror the exact attitudes people in our medieval world had, they do have a fair amount of outdated social beliefs in their own worlds -- for instance, like the rampant classism that we see in Tellius and especially Shadows of Valentia, with commoners being looked down upon or blocked from important offices. We get racism and prejudice in Elibe (against the Sacaens), Tellius (against the laguz), and even in Jugdral people look down upon Verdane as barbaric.

People are much more concerned with stuff like regicide and politics than the plight of normal people. People are more willing to use violence as a means to an end, and while we of course get characters that protest and want to change the world for the better (Alm vs. the classism, and the like) a lot of characters are coldly pragmatic about it if they mention it at all, in a "that's just the way the world works" sort of way.

Sexism is missing for the most part. But of course, having anyone but one-off villains like that guy in Mia's backstory being sexist and, for example, keeping women out of armies completely, would alienate half of the games' player base.

I must disagree while claiming to understand your point once again. Classism, sweeping generalizations of other countries and flat out racism are still, sadly all too common in our world. I think that just because these are occasional topics in Fire Emblem and they fight with swords are not enough reasons to justify speaking in ye olde tongue. 

Look, I believe that it's possible to find some balance here without making it come across too stilted, and give the writing a certain flair, but I think this is an example of cherry picking. We don't see as many complaints about the lords fraternizing with their armies, the complete lack of siege weapons and starvation tactics substituted with four hot guys walking into a castle and taking it over from the inside, girls fighting in mini skirts, everyone being sparklingly clean, healthy, in shape and attractive when a normal medieval army was anything but, and so on. 

For example, in Shadows of Valentia, Lukas makes the claim that titles and class will mean precious little in the world they're about to create. So, should they stop speaking in a more old-fashioned way then, because Alm's ascendency to flawless God-Emperor stops thousands of years of tradition and strife, or should they stick to speaking in an old fashioned way just because they use swords?

Once again I'm not advocating for gimmicks or an overusage of modern slang or anything, but I find the arguments for more accurate historical representation not holding much water, and trying too hard to emulate a more formal speech can end up causing the dialogue to be much more stilted and lifeless, which Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones suffered from in particular.

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3 hours ago, Thane said:

I must disagree while claiming to understand your point once again. Classism, sweeping generalizations of other countries and flat out racism are still, sadly all too common in our world. I think that just because these are occasional topics in Fire Emblem and they fight with swords are not enough reasons to justify speaking in ye olde tongue. 

Look, I believe that it's possible to find some balance here without making it come across too stilted, and give the writing a certain flair, but I think this is an example of cherry picking. We don't see as many complaints about the lords fraternizing with their armies, the complete lack of siege weapons and starvation tactics substituted with four hot guys walking into a castle and taking it over from the inside, girls fighting in mini skirts, everyone being sparklingly clean, healthy, in shape and attractive when a normal medieval army was anything but, and so on. 

For example, in Shadows of Valentia, Lukas makes the claim that titles and class will mean precious little in the world they're about to create. So, should they stop speaking in a more old-fashioned way then, because Alm's ascendency to flawless God-Emperor stops thousands of years of tradition and strife, or should they stick to speaking in an old fashioned way just because they use swords?

Once again I'm not advocating for gimmicks or an overusage of modern slang or anything, but I find the arguments for more accurate historical representation not holding much water, and trying too hard to emulate a more formal speech can end up causing the dialogue to be much more stilted and lifeless, which Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones suffered from in particular.

A number of people do complain about those things (particularly Ephraims four man castle storm) but the difference between those things and the language style is that mini skirt pegasus riders and a low focus on segie tactics have always been elements of the franchise. While the language style is something that has shifted in the latest generation. If the games always had a modern mode of talk I doubt anyone would comment on the absence of formal tongue. There's a clear divide. I don't think its surprising for someone to compare the two and say they like the old sytyle better, if only because its makes the writing more distinct than most other works on the market.

Edited by Jotari
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6 hours ago, Jotari said:

A number of people do complain about those things (particularly Ephraims four man castle storm) but the difference between those things and the language style is that mini skirt pegasus riders and a low focus on segie tactics have always been elements of the franchise. While the language style is something that has shifted in the latest generation. If the games always had a modern mode of talk I doubt anyone would comment on the absence of formal tongue. There's a clear divide. I don't think its surprising for someone to compare the two and say they like the old sytyle better, if only because its makes the writing more distinct than most other works on the market.

I disagree. Sure, I understand preferences, but saying "it has always been that way so why bother changing it" is not an attitude that sits well with me, and it would come across as some mental gymnastics to justify girls in mini skirts in a medieval setting serving in the army in one breath and complaining about the language in the other.

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13 hours ago, Thane said:

I must disagree while claiming to understand your point once again. Classism, sweeping generalizations of other countries and flat out racism are still, sadly all too common in our world. I think that just because these are occasional topics in Fire Emblem and they fight with swords are not enough reasons to justify speaking in ye olde tongue. 

Look, I believe that it's possible to find some balance here without making it come across too stilted, and give the writing a certain flair, but I think this is an example of cherry picking. We don't see as many complaints about the lords fraternizing with their armies, the complete lack of siege weapons and starvation tactics substituted with four hot guys walking into a castle and taking it over from the inside, girls fighting in mini skirts, everyone being sparklingly clean, healthy, in shape and attractive when a normal medieval army was anything but, and so on. 

For example, in Shadows of Valentia, Lukas makes the claim that titles and class will mean precious little in the world they're about to create. So, should they stop speaking in a more old-fashioned way then, because Alm's ascendency to flawless God-Emperor stops thousands of years of tradition and strife, or should they stick to speaking in an old fashioned way just because they use swords?

Once again I'm not advocating for gimmicks or an overusage of modern slang or anything, but I find the arguments for more accurate historical representation not holding much water, and trying too hard to emulate a more formal speech can end up causing the dialogue to be much more stilted and lifeless, which Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones suffered from in particular.

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we've conquered racism, classim, or sexism in the present day. Far, far from it. I'm not that naive, haha. I was just saying that FE worlds have their share of medieval biases, even if they're slightly different than the medieval biases of our own world.

"Ye olde tongue" is an exaggeration, I think. We're not talking Shakespearean English or Middle English here (unless you're Bastian, and the whole point of his character is to sound flowery and high-handed), which, yeah that would be jarring as hell and awkward. It's slightly formal modern English, something you'd read out of a novel from the 19th or 18th centuries. Whether you like that writing or not comes down to personal opinion, of course. I enjoy it in period pieces and fantasy pieces, because it gives a bit more "realism," or maybe better said, believability to the world. Considering a ton of modern slang/sayings evolved very, very recently, they just don't make sense in old-world fantasy type setting in my opinion. It may not strain credibility/believability or take you out of the story, but it does for me. When I read something like Beowulf, it's not written/translated in our modern language with our modern sayings. It's a high fantasy epic with the language to go along with it, which I tended to read FEs pre-Awakening as and enjoyed.

With the other fantastical elements, it comes down to suspension of disbelief, and yes, in a lot of ways suspension of disbelief is cherry picked. It's what "sounds" or "feels" right to you. With any media, you have to accept inaccurate/fantastical elements to enjoy it and get immersed in the world. With FE in particular, It's always been implied that there are nameless, faceless allied soldiers that the plot doesn't bother to show us, because of course 20ish people couldn't win an entire war by themselves. We do have siege weapons in balistas, and also siege tomes like meteor and bolting. Our characters are far better looking than the average medieval soldier, because it's a video game, which wants to market attractive characters. Not to mention, starvation/siege tactics that were common in the real world aren't conducive to interesting or intriguing play in a video game. I can accept all of the above, because I can either explain it away as a necessity of marketing or gameplay, or because it "fits" within the world that has been created.

Your saying that the scripts of Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones is stilted I heavily disagree with. I got plenty of character, funny moments, and good writing out of both of them, while not being taken out of the setting by an off-color slang remark or meme. I can appreciate the well-spoken characters a lot more because of it. Contrary to popular belief, you can be funny and well-written without writing in a modern tongue.

Edited by Extrasolar
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