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This Story (FE 4 SPOILERS)


TadpoleSuperHero
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SPOILERS FOR FE 4 CHAPTER 3 AND BEYOND 

(just getting that warning out there, I'm not spoiler-tagging this post, so if you don't want to know stuff, now you know to walk away)

So I've finally been playing Genealogy of the Holy War. The Prologue and Chapter 1 were fun, I really love the large maps, the different gameplay elements (seeing mounted units able to move after acting is wonderful, I thought Path of Radiance was the first game to do that, and I LOVE that feature), etc. Sigurd is a BEAST, those stat growths are unfair. 

But what's really started grabbing me since Chapter 2, and now almost through Chapter 3, is the story. I'd heard good things about it, but early on it just seemed like "hey look it's really big and epic and there are a bunch of names and stuff" but there wasn't much of an emotional hook. Stuff just happened, move on. 

But now it's started to become so heartbreakingly tragic that I can't wait until I finish the game to talk about it. First, in Chapter 2, there are the little hints and dialogue here and there - Prince Kurth and his affair, having no heir or wife because of heartache and not getting over his one true love, and then he goes to Isaach to try and stop the war, but he's assassinated. That's all distant stuff, but it hit me all the same. We also get these great moments between Sigurd, Eldigan, and Cuan (Quan?), talking about their past as friends and in the academy, and how they swore they'd help change the world together. 

Then we get to Chapter 3, and the set-up rockets into so much payoff already, all in the tragic, painful kind, but in a good way from a storytelling perspective. Sigurd is pitted against his best friend, and there's just no way out of it for either of them - neither will disobey their orders, and both are determined to do things the honorable way, the best way they can, so neither can sway the other. I had Lachesis talk to Eldigan so he'd leave - I couldn't stand to have Sigurd fight against him - and THEN HE'S EXECUTED ON THE SPOT. Lachesis loses her brother, Sigurd loses his best friend, and the failing nation of Augusta loses the only hope they ever had for possibly regaining their former glory. 

Backtracking, before that, unbeknownst to Sigurd, Deirdre is kidnapped. And when Sigurd finally claims Seilvi (spelling?), first he sees Eldigan's head. Oifey tells him not to lose heart yet, AND THEN SHANAN SHOWS UP TO TELL HIM HIS WIFE IS GONE. His best friend murdered, his wife vanished, and also finding out that his father is the prime suspect in the assassination of Prince Kurth. Sigurd's whole world is collapsing around him, and all he's done is follow orders and do his best to do the right thing. 

Then we have the little scene with Ethlyn and Cuan, where she gives him the Gae Bolg. There's brief mention of the tragedy surrounding it, and notes that tragedy is likely to follow whoever wields it, but Cuan dismisses that as just a legend. But, at least for me, since I'd read a bit of what happens later, that moment just hit me, because I know that, not long from now, Cuan is going to die trying to defend his children, and have his only daughter (who's mentioned in this scene, as well - strong foreshadowing there, IS) taken from him. 

And Chapter 3 isn't even over yet!

I was already enjoying FE 4, the gameplay is so solid and these giant maps, while exhausting, are also so exciting and epic. Being able to save every turn is a big plus, something that really is necessary with the size of these maps, and it's forced me to get out of the mindset of "beat a chapter in one sitting" because these ain't like your other FE chapters. 

But now the story is just hitting all the high notes for me, I'm really into it, and excited for what comes next. While I know a bit of what else happens - Cuan and Ethlyn's fate, their daughter being taken, and Sigurd dying in a fire (so many memes, that's the one FE 4 spoiler that no one can avoid), Deirdre and Arvis making evil (and not so evil) babies - actually watching things unfold is a whole different thing. It's also why I put a spoiler tag up above. While I knew some of what was going to happen (like Eldigan's entire in-game story), watching it unfold is totally different and totally worth it. 

For those who have played this far or farther, feel free to discuss the story and these specific moments. If the story was one of the high points for you, what about it made it start clicking with you and why does it resonate with you so much? Also, what happened to the good writers at Intelligent Systems? I still enjoy Fire Emblem, even the newest games, but the stories are the main things that, for me, have steadily declined in quality. It's sad to see, but also makes going back to one of the older games, and one I've never played, such a fresh treat.

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1 hour ago, TadpoleSuperHero said:

Also, what happened to the good writers at Intelligent Systems?

Tellius sold like crap and Awakening sold gangbusters, so they just got rid of the writers when they saw that they weren't necessary. 

On a serious note, yeah. Even though I like Jugdral more than Tellius, I would at least like see them return to Tellius quality with their writing. Nothing crazy, but competently done and well-developed. 

Returning to Jugdral-level's probably not gonna happen. Say what you will about Kaga, but he was ambitious, and he was involved with many steps of the development process, including writing. Without him, it's tough to say that we'll get something of the quality that he worked on. 

Edited by Slumber
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You mirror my exact evolution with the game when I first played it. The story is just a bunch of stuff for the first few chapters, but then, when we realize what's happening to Eldigan, one of the characters whose face we've seen plenty of and isn't in our army, everything just shifts. He's not one of those endless names, he's a guy, and things are going to shit for him too. It just dragged me in and suddenly I was paying attention. Gen 1 is generally considered better than Gen 2, but you'll probably find yourself enjoying Gen 2 even more than Gen 1 on a first playthrough, because by that point you're just so much more invested in the story then the start, where it's just Sigurd and his bros rescuing some girl.

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8 hours ago, Slumber said:

Tellius sold like crap and Awakening sold gangbusters, so they just got rid of the writers when they saw that they weren't necessary. 

On a serious note, yeah. Even though I like Jugdral more than Tellius, I would at least like see them return to Tellius quality with their writing. Nothing crazy, but competently done and well-developed. 

Returning to Jugdral-level's probably not gonna happen. Say what you will about Kaga, but he was ambitious, and he was involved with many steps of the development process, including writing. Without him, it's tough to say that we'll get something of the quality that he worked on. 

Yeah, it's one of those tricky things when the person who created the series - probably the person most emotionally attached to it and most passionate about it - leaves. Whatever their contributions to the series, how do you go on without them? They did a great job carrying on Kaga's legacy through the GBA and Tellius eras, and DS remakes weren't bad, but I wonder now just how much of the team that was involved even with the GBA games is still working at IS. I know they still have the same main composer from as far back as the SNES games (and I think she worked on the series from the start), which is evident in how, no matter what, you can always count on FE music to be freaking fantastic. But I'd be interested to see how much, especially of their writing staff, has turned over and gone on to other things. They had some excitingly ambitious level designers working on Fates, and I hope those same people are working on FE Switch. Though I didn't feel like they executed very well on their ideas in Fates, they had some amazingly inventive ideas and I'd love to see them get more time to continue to breathe that kind of creativity into level design going forward, with more experience to help them polish those ideas. 

But yeah, writing staff, if there's been a lot of turnover, then perhaps it's just a matter of time before they get some great writers back, or their current writers have a massive change of heart (and get proper time and support to create engaging stories). There's clearly still a lot of work going into the stories, and Fates was wildly ambitious, but... well, who knows what's going on behind the scenes? I'm still looking forward to FE Switch, as I continue to enjoy the series, but the stories are where I've felt a truly sharp decline. Awakening was fairly enjoyable, but it was a surprising step down after the fantastic work on the Tellius series. Maybe those DS remakes happened because they were struggling with staff departures and other behind-the-scenes stuff? It took them a long time to make a brand new FE. I'd love to know what's happened behind the scenes.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

You mirror my exact evolution with the game when I first played it. The story is just a bunch of stuff for the first few chapters, but then, when we realize what's happening to Eldigan, one of the characters whose face we've seen plenty of and isn't in our army, everything just shifts. He's not one of those endless names, he's a guy, and things are going to shit for him too. It just dragged me in and suddenly I was paying attention. Gen 1 is generally considered better than Gen 2, but you'll probably find yourself enjoying Gen 2 even more than Gen 1 on a first playthrough, because by that point you're just so much more invested in the story then the start, where it's just Sigurd and his bros rescuing some girl.

Yeah, Eldigan really brought things into sharp focus, and I like how even the larger machinations around the world, like Kurth's assasination, have been woven into the more personal fabric of the story, with Sigurd's father being the prime suspect. I have heard that Gen 1 is considered better than Gen 2, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out for me. On a side note, I like most of the Gen 2 character designs better than Gen 1's lol so we'll see if that holds up once I meet the characters themselves. And I'm glad Finn carries over to Gen 2, he may not get much character development in Gen 1, but I really enjoy using him. 

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Every story can be considered very dark and terrible when you actually learn about it, but the Jugdral series are generally much more dark because of how things are presented. In fact, some fans believe that the Tellius series might have actually have been created from Kaga's notes, as the Berwick Saga actually has a LOT of similarities to the Tellius series. 

I wouldn't say that the Awakening story was bad at all. In fact, the Awakening writers did a fantastic job with what they were given. The flaw in Awakening is the issue that it's just very rushed. The 3DS can only hold so much, after all. Had Awakening been for an actual console like the Wii or such, they actually could have written far more of the story into it, explore more, even make us have a serious understanding of just how dark the Future Past story can be. I would seriously love a game based around Lucina's future, and it emphasizes just how terrible Lucina's world had become.

The Jugdral series is loved so much because of how they don't hold back in showing us how dark the story gets. 

Let me explain with something like Awakening. 

In Awakening, we get a glimpse of Lucina's future, see that it's ravaging us, and is causing much havoc. We see how terrifying Grima actually can be. But the people that die in the future past are just no names most of the time. 

In Jugdral, we see Eldigan as a character that is struggling with his loyalty, towards his liege, his honor, his sister, his best friend, and in the end, regardless of what happens, he either dies as a foolish soldier of Chagall, or dies branded as a traitor by Chagall. He has no good way to go. And we're invested in him because of how we would love for him to join us. And then we find out there's no escape from death for him. And Deirdre is vital to Manfroy's plans, and we fid how she falls with Sigurd and they have a child together, and then Sigurd loses her. It's saddening because we're invested. 

That's the key difference. The investment. 

People don't find Emmeryn's sacrifice that impactful because she had such little screen time and not enough chances for us to be invested in her.

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16 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Every story can be considered very dark and terrible when you actually learn about it, but the Jugdral series are generally much more dark because of how things are presented. In fact, some fans believe that the Tellius series might have actually have been created from Kaga's notes, as the Berwick Saga actually has a LOT of similarities to the Tellius series. 

I wouldn't say that the Awakening story was bad at all. In fact, the Awakening writers did a fantastic job with what they were given. The flaw in Awakening is the issue that it's just very rushed. The 3DS can only hold so much, after all. Had Awakening been for an actual console like the Wii or such, they actually could have written far more of the story into it, explore more, even make us have a serious understanding of just how dark the Future Past story can be. I would seriously love a game based around Lucina's future, and it emphasizes just how terrible Lucina's world had become.

The Jugdral series is loved so much because of how they don't hold back in showing us how dark the story gets. 

Let me explain with something like Awakening. 

In Awakening, we get a glimpse of Lucina's future, see that it's ravaging us, and is causing much havoc. We see how terrifying Grima actually can be. But the people that die in the future past are just no names most of the time. 

In Jugdral, we see Eldigan as a character that is struggling with his loyalty, towards his liege, his honor, his sister, his best friend, and in the end, regardless of what happens, he either dies as a foolish soldier of Chagall, or dies branded as a traitor by Chagall. He has no good way to go. And we're invested in him because of how we would love for him to join us. And then we find out there's no escape from death for him. And Deirdre is vital to Manfroy's plans, and we fid how she falls with Sigurd and they have a child together, and then Sigurd loses her. It's saddening because we're invested. 

That's the key difference. The investment. 

People don't find Emmeryn's sacrifice that impactful because she had such little screen time and not enough chances for us to be invested in her.

100% agree with you on Awakening. I quite enjoy that story, and it has some really wonderful moments and characters. But while scenes like Emmeryn's death did hit me a bit, they could have been so much more impactful. I also think the entire Valm storyline is unnecessary. It's something that could have been good, maybe, if this was a console title with more storage space to make something huge, but even so, it was more like "HEY LOOK GAIDEN FANSERVICE" rather than something really impactful, and if they'd stayed in Archanea the entire time, they could have focused their plot inward and not spread everything so thin. I also don't entirely like how they handle Lucina's future. She is the ONLY child character that matters to the story, and all we see of her future are a few of her flashbacks (not counting the DLC Future Past missions, which are nice, but I really would have preferred an actual exploration of that future and those characters). They definitely had too many ideas and struggled to focus their plot and gameplay. They wanted to have so much from the entire series, and it's a huge game for the 3DS, but they definitely stretched themselves too thin. And other than all of the parents being dead (and dying off-screen, no less) in the future, there's no impact and no one really dies. I am absolutely with you that I would want to see a game focused on Lucina's future. Just finished another playthrough of Awakening recently, so a lot of this is fresh in my mind, and that's one thing that really hit for me. I love her character, I love the ideas behind her and her world, and I wanted to actually see that, to get the chance to be invested in it. 

FE 4 (at least so far from my playthrough) is much more focused. Yes, there's a lot going on in the world, but all of it circles back on our main characters. The assassination of Kurth is a plot not only to ruin Sigurd's father, but also Sigurd himself (and his early missions are a plot to get Sigurd far away and helpless). The machinations of Manfroy and monocle-guy (I already forgot his name, he's Tailteu's father) are tied back into our main cast, so while there are a lot of characters and side plots, they aren't spread thin and trying to do lots of things at once. And we get to invest in these characters (there's a smaller core cast than Awakening, which also helps that fact), like you said with Eldigan, with Sigurd, and to a lesser extent with Quan and Ethlin, and with Ayra and Shanan. 

I really want to play Berwick Saga now after you said that about Tellius. I've been wanting to play Berwick Saga and Tearring Saga anyway, but that really sells it for me. Good to know!

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The story of FE4 was my favourite story of the franchise, it shows the dark side of being a lord and war.  One of my favourite moments is as Sigurd got the Tyrfing.
 

59 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Every story can be considered very dark and terrible when you actually learn about it, but the Jugdral series are generally much more dark because of how things are presented. In fact, some fans believe that the Tellius series might have actually have been created from Kaga's notes, as the Berwick Saga actually has a LOT of similarities to the Tellius series. 

I wouldn't say that the Awakening story was bad at all. In fact, the Awakening writers did a fantastic job with what they were given. The flaw in Awakening is the issue that it's just very rushed. The 3DS can only hold so much, after all. Had Awakening been for an actual console like the Wii or such, they actually could have written far more of the story into it, explore more, even make us have a serious understanding of just how dark the Future Past story can be. I would seriously love a game based around Lucina's future, and it emphasizes just how terrible Lucina's world had become.

The Jugdral series is loved so much because of how they don't hold back in showing us how dark the story gets. 

Let me explain with something like Awakening. 

In Awakening, we get a glimpse of Lucina's future, see that it's ravaging us, and is causing much havoc. We see how terrifying Grima actually can be. But the people that die in the future past are just no names most of the time. 

In Jugdral, we see Eldigan as a character that is struggling with his loyalty, towards his liege, his honor, his sister, his best friend, and in the end, regardless of what happens, he either dies as a foolish soldier of Chagall, or dies branded as a traitor by Chagall. He has no good way to go. And we're invested in him because of how we would love for him to join us. And then we find out there's no escape from death for him. And Deirdre is vital to Manfroy's plans, and we fid how she falls with Sigurd and they have a child together, and then Sigurd loses her. It's saddening because we're invested. 

That's the key difference. The investment. 

People don't find Emmeryn's sacrifice that impactful because she had such little screen time and not enough chances for us to be invested in her.

I didn't like the story of Awakening much, since timetraveling do not fit Fire Emblem in my opinion and as you said the majority of dying people are just no names. Another problem is, Chrom, who is a bad version of Ike,  he wasn't really able to be a true lord.
But the major problem was the first war with Gangrel, who was in this time just a flat antagonist . The best part of this time was that we met Validar and learned a bit about the Grimleal. 
The best part of Awakening was at the same time one of my problem's with it, the future. I was really interested to know what happened there, but we didn't get much of it.
I think it would be better, if Awakening had more focused on it.
I am really interested to know more about your ideas of Lucina's future, therefore I start a new topic about this.

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55 minutes ago, TadpoleSuperHero said:

100% agree with you on Awakening. I quite enjoy that story, and it has some really wonderful moments and characters. But while scenes like Emmeryn's death did hit me a bit, they could have been so much more impactful. I also think the entire Valm storyline is unnecessary. It's something that could have been good, maybe, if this was a console title with more storage space to make something huge, but even so, it was more like "HEY LOOK GAIDEN FANSERVICE" rather than something really impactful, and if they'd stayed in Archanea the entire time, they could have focused their plot inward and not spread everything so thin. I also don't entirely like how they handle Lucina's future. She is the ONLY child character that matters to the story, and all we see of her future are a few of her flashbacks (not counting the DLC Future Past missions, which are nice, but I really would have preferred an actual exploration of that future and those characters). They definitely had too many ideas and struggled to focus their plot and gameplay. They wanted to have so much from the entire series, and it's a huge game for the 3DS, but they definitely stretched themselves too thin. And other than all of the parents being dead (and dying off-screen, no less) in the future, there's no impact and no one really dies. I am absolutely with you that I would want to see a game focused on Lucina's future. Just finished another playthrough of Awakening recently, so a lot of this is fresh in my mind, and that's one thing that really hit for me. I love her character, I love the ideas behind her and her world, and I wanted to actually see that, to get the chance to be invested in it. 

FE 4 (at least so far from my playthrough) is much more focused. Yes, there's a lot going on in the world, but all of it circles back on our main characters. The assassination of Kurth is a plot not only to ruin Sigurd's father, but also Sigurd himself (and his early missions are a plot to get Sigurd far away and helpless). The machinations of Manfroy and monocle-guy (I already forgot his name, he's Tailteu's father) are tied back into our main cast, so while there are a lot of characters and side plots, they aren't spread thin and trying to do lots of things at once. And we get to invest in these characters (there's a smaller core cast than Awakening, which also helps that fact), like you said with Eldigan, with Sigurd, and to a lesser extent with Quan and Ethlin, and with Ayra and Shanan. 

I really want to play Berwick Saga now after you said that about Tellius. I've been wanting to play Berwick Saga and Tearring Saga anyway, but that really sells it for me. Good to know!

That's EXACTLY it. Awakening was believed and intended to be the last game of the franchise. It was a game that was focused purely on references. To be fanservice to the players. These were meant to be a reminder to everyone of just how much the writers themselves loved the series. The world map from Sacred Stones and Gaiden. Marth having his descendants as Lucina, Chrom, etc. Robin being a reference to the Jugdral Series of Juius, with Grima/Loptyr, Grimleal/Lopto Sect. What they wanted to convey, I think the writers did remarkably well, and no one should ever fault them for it.

However, I think the reason that the Valm saga felt like filler, despite how it probably wasn't, is more on the issue on how it's too much tell, and little show. Someone on reddit gave some examples. Here's the thread:

Spoiler

 

Put it behind a spoiler tag to save space.

Had there been a bit more expansion, we could have gotten a much better depth about Walhart's intentions, and how it could actually tie into the plot. Hell, Walhart's attempts could also in some way be something that is done also from what happened with Chrom's father. 

As for Lucina and her companions, yet, that's the issue. Because Lucina is 100% canon, and the others are optional, it messes with things. So due to that, they made the other children perform really nothing and seems to be screwing off. Gerome I could understand, as he makes it clear he has no intention of saving the world, but just freeing the wyverns, but Laurent came back three years earlier, and did nothing. And it doesn't help that some of the Awakening children supports act like they've never gone through hell together or there being any kind of bond. Some kind of sign that shows they have known each other for a while now. 

And yes, the story of Genealogy can very well tie to the other characters. Hell, we have Lex's and Tailtiu's fathers being the bad guys here, and Azelle's brother is Arvis, and Arvis clearly has some motives as well. We also have the case of the Mitsuki Oosawa manga that REALLY plays the characters to be far more sympathetic. These things are only possible because of the relations the characters in Sigurd's party have with the bad guys.

20 minutes ago, Morswo said:

The story of FE4 was my favourite story of the franchise, it shows the dark side of being a lord and war.  One of my favourite moments is as Sigurd got the Tyrfing.
 

I didn't like the story of Awakening much, since timetraveling do not fit Fire Emblem in my opinion and as you said the majority of dying people are just no names. Another problem is, Chrom, who is a bad version of Ike,  he wasn't really able to be a true lord.
But the major problem was the first war with Gangrel, who was in this time just a flat antagonist . The best part of this time was that we met Validar and learned a bit about the Grimleal. 
The best part of Awakening was at the same time one of my problem's with it, the future. I was really interested to know what happened there, but we didn't get much of it.
I think it would be better, if Awakening had more focused on it.
I am really interested to know more about your ideas of Lucina's future, therefore I start a new topic about this.

Chrom really isn't some bad version of Ike. He actually isn't like Ike at all. Unlike Ike, who clearly never wanted responsibilities to the point that he would abandon it at the first opportunity, Chrom didn't abandon his in the end. He accepted his role as the new Exalt and began to lead it. Furthermore, contrary to how Ike's smash quote is that he "fights for his friends", I honestly never got that impression of Ike in the Tellius series at all. In fact, in Radiant Dawn end, Ike ultimately showed himself to be a guy that loves a good fight, to test his skill. 

I didn't find Gangrel to be flat at all. His entire schtick of being considered mad is more like how he has this view that all humans are selfish creatures and the act of being some kind of saint is something of hypocrisy. Emmeryn is a saint, but her father was a tyrant ultimately that led many people to a brutal death during his crusade. And the thing is, Gangrel was not the only one that shared this opinion. Many people during Emmeryn's first years of her reign ultimately had her own people hurl insulting words and stones at her. Had we actually gotten a bit more backstory (Memory Prisms would have been great here) on this, it could have shown many things. 

Time travel I feel isn't that terrible of a thing to be there. It's interesting and it's rather unique. The fact that Awakening actually plays the role of how destiny can be averted is something other games don't handle that often, because many people and even in Kaga's works, show this thing about how destiny is always set, and that everyone is ultimately a beckoned by it. Awakening shows that destiny can be shaped and not be set in stone. 

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Guest Dreamyboi
1 hour ago, omegaxis1 said:

Every story can be considered very dark and terrible when you actually learn about it, but the Jugdral series are generally much more dark because of how things are presented. In fact, some fans believe that the Tellius series might have actually have been created from Kaga's notes, as the Berwick Saga actually has a LOT of similarities to the Tellius series. 

I wouldn't say that the Awakening story was bad at all. In fact, the Awakening writers did a fantastic job with what they were given. The flaw in Awakening is the issue that it's just very rushed. The 3DS can only hold so much, after all. Had Awakening been for an actual console like the Wii or such, they actually could have written far more of the story into it, explore more, even make us have a serious understanding of just how dark the Future Past story can be. I would seriously love a game based around Lucina's future, and it emphasizes just how terrible Lucina's world had become.

The Jugdral series is loved so much because of how they don't hold back in showing us how dark the story gets. 

Let me explain with something like Awakening. 

In Awakening, we get a glimpse of Lucina's future, see that it's ravaging us, and is causing much havoc. We see how terrifying Grima actually can be. But the people that die in the future past are just no names most of the time. 

In Jugdral, we see Eldigan as a character that is struggling with his loyalty, towards his liege, his honor, his sister, his best friend, and in the end, regardless of what happens, he either dies as a foolish soldier of Chagall, or dies branded as a traitor by Chagall. He has no good way to go. And we're invested in him because of how we would love for him to join us. And then we find out there's no escape from death for him. And Deirdre is vital to Manfroy's plans, and we fid how she falls with Sigurd and they have a child together, and then Sigurd loses her. It's saddening because we're invested. 

That's the key difference. The investment. 

People don't find Emmeryn's sacrifice that impactful because she had such little screen time and not enough chances for us to be invested in her.

Thing is that even with little screentime you can make a character empathetic and get the viewer invested in them if you play your cards right.

I for one felt awful about taking down Mustafa and wanted to see if I could recruit him, and I felt that way because in the small amount of screentime you get of him you see so much.

His understanding, his sense of morality, the tragedy of his situation, his inner conflict, the reason he's still fighting you after Emmeryn's sacrifice and on top of all this he's a boss unit who isn't just generic evil guy to be taken down and it was all done in one chapter. THIS is how you get people invested in your characters, empathy and understanding. Meanwhile in Fates we see Emmeryn 2.0 (Mikoto) show just how benevolent and opposite of Garon she is and in the next chapter OH SHIT SHE DIED OH NO SO TRAGIC, it's artificial drama to the point where the character who in the previous chapter had to sadly admit to not having any sort of attachment to her (Corrin) reacts more violently than the handful of royal siblings who have spent far more time with her and all for the express purpose of letting Corrin dragon up and starting the big decision the game does everything in it's power to undermine even though there's a plothole there but that's irrelevant.

I'll fully agree with you in saying that without the 3DS's limitations the story could have been more fleshed out, but even with a limited amoutn of time and space you can get characters like Mustafa.

Edited by Dreamyboi
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1 minute ago, Dreamyboi said:

Thing is that even with little screentime you can make a character empathetic and get the viewer in vested in them if you play your cards right.

I for one felt awful about taking down Mustafa and wanted to see if I recruit him, and I felt that way because in the small amount of screentime you get of him you see so much.

His understanding, his sense of morality, the tragedy of his situation, his inner conflict, the reason he's still fighting you after Emmeryn's sacrifice and on top of all this he's a boss unit who isn't just generic evil guy to be taken down and it was all done in one chapter. THIS is how you get people invested in your characters, empathy and understanding. Meanwhile in Fates we see Emmeryn 2.0 (Mikoto) show just how benevolent and opposite of Garon she is and in the next chapter OH SHIT SHE DIED OH NO SO TRAGIC, it's artificial drama to the point where the character who in the previous chapter had to sadly admit to not having any sort of attachment to her (Corrin) reacts more violently than the handful of royal siblings who have spent far more time with her and all for the express purpose of letting Corrin dragon up and starting the big decision the game does everything in it's power to undermine even though there's a plothole there but that's irrelevant.

I'll fully agree with you in saying that without the 3DS's limitations the story could have been more fleshed out, but even with a limited amoutn of time and space you can get characters like Mustafa.

Now here's something that is VERY interesting. 

WHY do we care so much for Mustafa? Simple. It's because of Emmeryn, Chrom, Gangrel, and the soldiers serving Gangrel. 

Allow me to explain.

Last chapter, Gangrel showed how vicious and cruel he was, and how Emmeryn tried to continue to preach for peace and even went as far as to fall to her own "death" for it. Chrom is devastated. They fought so hard and far, and ultimately they failed. 

Then we go to the next chapter, and unlike all the other guys, who are all bloodthirsty that truly give us little room for empathy, for once we have a "villain" that talks about a peaceful surrender and even talks about Emmeryn. He assures them that he means them no harm and if they surrender, they can be protected. But Chrom is overwhelmed by anger and hatred, and they've seen only the bad of Plegia. 

And then we see signs of Emmeryn's sacrifice take root and show how others are affected and questioning their reasons for fighting. We finally see the moral grey, and despite that soldier being threatened, Mustafa ended up sparing him and telling others to leave if they wish to but also explained that he cannot go because Gangrel would put his family to the death otherwise. We see that he means well and he truly cares for his men. 

It's how everyone had been built up to it that we see that not all Plegians are evil.

That's why Mustafa is someone that anyone can love. He was that single shred of moral grey among the antagonists.

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1 hour ago, omegaxis1 said:

Every story can be considered very dark and terrible when you actually learn about it, but the Jugdral series are generally much more dark because of how things are presented. In fact, some fans believe that the Tellius series might have actually have been created from Kaga's notes, as the Berwick Saga actually has a LOT of similarities to the Tellius series. 

I wouldn't say that the Awakening story was bad at all. In fact, the Awakening writers did a fantastic job with what they were given. The flaw in Awakening is the issue that it's just very rushed. The 3DS can only hold so much, after all. Had Awakening been for an actual console like the Wii or such, they actually could have written far more of the story into it, explore more, even make us have a serious understanding of just how dark the Future Past story can be. I would seriously love a game based around Lucina's future, and it emphasizes just how terrible Lucina's world had become.

The Jugdral series is loved so much because of how they don't hold back in showing us how dark the story gets. 

Let me explain with something like Awakening. 

In Awakening, we get a glimpse of Lucina's future, see that it's ravaging us, and is causing much havoc. We see how terrifying Grima actually can be. But the people that die in the future past are just no names most of the time. 

In Jugdral, we see Eldigan as a character that is struggling with his loyalty, towards his liege, his honor, his sister, his best friend, and in the end, regardless of what happens, he either dies as a foolish soldier of Chagall, or dies branded as a traitor by Chagall. He has no good way to go. And we're invested in him because of how we would love for him to join us. And then we find out there's no escape from death for him. And Deirdre is vital to Manfroy's plans, and we fid how she falls with Sigurd and they have a child together, and then Sigurd loses her. It's saddening because we're invested. 

That's the key difference. The investment. 

People don't find Emmeryn's sacrifice that impactful because she had such little screen time and not enough chances for us to be invested in her.

Re: Awakening. I don't buy that at all. It's clearly not a rushed job. A lot of effort went into its presentation. It had a decently long development cycle and the 3DS was more than capable of handling the amount of content needed for a full length plot if the game. The problem was focus. If Awakening wanted to be a 50+ chapter game with large focus on plot, then it easily could have been. The base game has almost 50 chapters as is, it's just that half of them are paralogues that don't contribute to the plot. And that's not even including the DLC chapters that could probably fit on the cartridge. They simply chose to focus more on the broad appeal of the game by making something that feels like it has extra content that lets players mind max their characters. And I can't really fault them for that, as they did make a decent game.

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1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Re: Awakening. I don't buy that at all. It's clearly not a rushed job. A lot of effort went into its presentation. It had a decently long development cycle and the 3DS was more than capable of handling the amount of content needed for a full length plot if the game. The problem was focus. If Awakening wanted to be a 50+ chapter game with large focus on plot, then it easily could have been. The base game has almost 50 chapters as is, it's just that half of them are paralogues that don't contribute to the plot. And that's not even including the DLC chapters that could probably fit on the cartridge. They simply chose to focus more on the broad appeal of the game by making something that feels like it has extra content that lets players mind max their characters. And I can't really fault them for that, as they did make a decent game.

Paralogues are one thing, but they aren't in tandem to the main story. I would have preferred if the Paralogues functioned as gaiden chapters that you can access upon some requirements being fulfilled, aside from the marriage of the characters. But you can clearly see that they did rush a lot of the story. We get hinted of a war that will be coming since the beginning. By Fire Emblem logic, that's already gonna mean that it's gonna happen. But when it did, we clear through that war in ~7 chapters. 

Walhart brings about another war, but that gets done in ~7 chapters as well. And then we get the final arc, which is done in 6 chapters. That's not enough time. Had we actually gotten maybe another 10 chapters, split for each arc, it would have been massively helpful even.

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Honestly I feel like I ruined FE 4's story by saving the game until second to last. After that point the story had no shock value, I'd seen it done by the other games more focused and in my personal opinion better. The problem I had with 4 was it trying to do too much too big, It lost some of the feeling and individuality.

Overall 4's story were the lackluster scraps of a half finished game. I admit I love the game as a GAME, The play style, classes, and maps are really fun (Plus really good soundtrack). But the story felt like I was watching lots of people doing very stupid things for no reason without rational though. 

15 hours ago, TadpoleSuperHero said:

Sigurd is pitted against his best friend, and there's just no way out of it for either of them - neither will disobey their orders

My problem here was the fact that Eldigans king had literally just thrown him in jail, and gone against the truce, It was clear to him that his king was lost and was going to drive the country into the ground.

15 hours ago, TadpoleSuperHero said:

I had Lachesis talk to Eldigan so he'd leave - I couldn't stand to have Sigurd fight against him - and THEN HE'S EXECUTED ON THE SPOT

He has Mistyltainn, Yet he just stands there...why...Your sister has just begged you to stop, you wont even save yourself for her sake, Eldie came of as a fool to me there. Caring for nothing, He's willing to try and stop his king but not disobey any orders, hes someone who will only half try to do his task, if it's too difficult he'll just give up.

15 hours ago, TadpoleSuperHero said:

Backtracking, before that, unbeknownst to Sigurd, Deirdre is kidnapped.

This was just the pinnacle of pure awful for me. She HAS to go see Sigurd for no good given reason, She just walks out onto the battlefield where she could be killed, maimed, or take as a prisoner. It's hard to feel sorry for a lemming, She doesn't even go "Oh no". I actually like Manfroy in the story as how the game is presented, he's just a buffoon who's plans just luckily feel into place, I like to imagine whenever he's presenting his plans to Arvis and such when the ask like "And you'r sure you can do this?" there's a pause before a half confidant "Yes...." comes out.

In the end the characters I liked from an actual story point of view where Oifey his ending was really good. Like I said Manfroy as he comes across as a lovable idiot villan. and Arvis. Arivs to me was the best written character in a bad story.


Like I said, I personally think 4's story is it's weakest part, been half baked and rushed to meet the deadline for an already overdue game. Either way enjoy the game, It is good, I just have cynical view of the game, too much hype was a massive let down.

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42 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

I didn't find Gangrel to be flat at all. His entire schtick of being considered mad is more like how he has this view that all humans are selfish creatures and the act of being some kind of saint is something of hypocrisy. Emmeryn is a saint, but her father was a tyrant ultimately that led many people to a brutal death during his crusade. And the thing is, Gangrel was not the only one that shared this opinion. Many people during Emmeryn's first years of her reign ultimately had her own people hurl insulting words and stones at her. Had we actually gotten a bit more backstory (Memory Prisms would have been great here) on this, it could have shown many things.

My point was that Gangrel was flat in the first plegian war. We knew that he tried to start a war between Plegia and Ylisse, to get the Fire Emblem, but if it was just revenge for the war with Emmeryn's father is unknown. So that in the time of plegian war was Gangrel just a violent and power hungry king.

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11 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Paralogues are one thing, but they aren't in tandem to the main story. I would have preferred if the Paralogues functioned as gaiden chapters that you can access upon some requirements being fulfilled, aside from the marriage of the characters. But you can clearly see that they did rush a lot of the story. We get hinted of a war that will be coming since the beginning. By Fire Emblem logic, that's already gonna mean that it's gonna happen. But when it did, we clear through that war in ~7 chapters. 

Walhart brings about another war, but that gets done in ~7 chapters as well. And then we get the final arc, which is done in 6 chapters. That's not enough time. Had we actually gotten maybe another 10 chapters, split for each arc, it would have been massively helpful even.

Yes, the story is rushed, but that's not because of the 3DS' limitations or the development cycle. It's because they simply chose not to focus more on the story and instead developed the gameplay and additional things (writing supports between almost every character for example, certainly would have taken up a bunch of the writer's time, probably more lines of dialogue there than in the main story and paralogues combined). They could have spent a bunch of time and money making a really great story, but it would have come at the cost of other parts of the game (remember, they had to build a combat engine from scratch). They just decided go serviceable for the story, rather than fantastic.

Or to put it another way, Genealogy was made with a good story in less than two years on the SNES. It was absolutely within their power to make a good story in less than two years on the 3DS, the resulting game just probably wouldn't have sold as much.

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6 minutes ago, DemolisherBPB said:

My problem here was the fact that Eldigans king had literally just thrown him in jail, and gone against the truce, It was clear to him that his king was lost and was going to drive the country into the ground.

 

6 minutes ago, DemolisherBPB said:

He has Mistyltainn, Yet he just stands there...why...Your sister has just begged you to stop, you wont even save yourself for her sake, Eldie came of as a fool to me there. Caring for nothing, He's willing to try and stop his king but not disobey any orders, hes someone who will only half try to do his task, if it's too difficult he'll just give up.

For one reason, the vow that House Nordion. 

When the Crusader Hezel had children, it was his youngest daughter, that had been married off into the Nordion family, that had Major Blood and could wield Mystletainn. So Hezel's direct descendants were Minor Bloods, while Nordion were Major, and were the royal family in the status. So the royal family of Augustria made an exchange to House Nordion. The Mystletainn would be in House Nordion's hands, and in exchange, House Nordion is to swear eternal fealty towards the royal family of Augustria. And Eldigan is of the Camus archetype, where no matter how horrible their lord is, they will not disobey the orders by that lord.

2 minutes ago, Morswo said:

My point was that Gangrel was flat in the first plegian war flat. We knew that he tried to start a war between Plegia and Ylisse, to get the Fire Emblem, but if it was just revenge for the war with Emmeryn's father is unknown. So that in the time of plegian war was Gangrel just a violent and power hungry king.

Emmeryn's father is dead, hence how Emmeryn became Exalt when she was 9 years old. Gangrel actually explained that it wasn't merely for revenge, but that he needed the Fire Emblem and to unite the continent to fight against Walhart, who Gangrel knew was going to be a major threat. Supports actually is interesting in how they show that he had some good reasons. But this is where the issue with Awakening being so rushed, it gave us more of a face value kind of thing. 

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Yes, the story is rushed, but that's not because of the 3DS' limitations or the development cycle. It's because they simply chose not to focus more on the story and instead developed the gameplay and additional things (writing supports between almost every character for example, certainly would have taken up a bunch of the writer's time, probably more lines of dialogue there than in the main story and paralogues combined). They could have spent a bunch of time and money making a really great story, but it would have come at the cost of other parts of the game (remember, they had to build a combat engine from scratch). They just decided go serviceable for the story, rather than fantastic.

Or to put it another way, Genealogy was made with a good story in less than two years on the SNES. It was absolutely within their power to make a good story in less than two years on the 3DS, the resulting game just probably wouldn't have sold as much.

Which is why I hope that after enough time goes by, a remake of Awakening will have a good story with the fixed mechanics. 

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9 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

 

For one reason, the vow that House Nordion. 

When the Crusader Hezel had children, it was his youngest daughter, that had been married off into the Nordion family, that had Major Blood and could wield Mystletainn. So Hezel's direct descendants were Minor Bloods, while Nordion were Major, and were the royal family in the status. So the royal family of Augustria made an exchange to House Nordion. The Mystletainn would be in House Nordion's hands, and in exchange, House Nordion is to swear eternal fealty towards the royal family of Augustria. And Eldigan is of the Camus archetype, where no matter how horrible their lord is, they will not disobey the orders by that lord.

Emmeryn's father is dead, hence how Emmeryn became Exalt when she was 9 years old. Gangrel actually explained that it wasn't merely for revenge, but that he needed the Fire Emblem and to unite the continent to fight against Walhart, who Gangrel knew was going to be a major threat. Supports actually is interesting in how they show that he had some good reasons. But this is where the issue with Awakening being so rushed, it gave us more of a face value kind of thing. 

Which is why I hope that after enough time goes by, a remake of Awakening will have a good story with the fixed mechanics. 

I doubt it. Awakening's story problems are more deeply entrenched than just minimalist writing. To improve it you'd either need to double the chapter count in the main story or change it so much that it's beyond recognizable (cutting the Valm arc for one). All that work would be better spent on a new game. The point of remakes is that they're easy to do. And besides, it's not like they have any real motivation to do something like that, Awakening might not be lauded for its story, but it's only scorned for it by a comparatively small group of people compared to the overall fan base.

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1 minute ago, Jotari said:

I doubt it. Awakening's story problems are more deeply entrenched than just minimalist writing. To improve it you'd either need to double the chapter count in the main story or change it so much that it's beyond recognizable (cutting the Valm arc for one). All that work would be better spent on a new game. The point of remakes is that they're easy to do. And besides, it's not like they have any real motivation to do something like that, Awakening might not be lauded for its story, but it's only scorned for it by a comparatively small group of people compared to the overall fan base.

If a remake of Awakening could be under a console, wouldn't that be something? We actually could have double the chapter count then.

But then again, supplementary materials in itself is helping out.

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3 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

If a remake of Awakening could be under a console, wouldn't that be something? We actually could have double the chapter count then.

But then again, supplementary materials in itself is helping out.

They easily could double the chapter count on a 3DS. Look at Fates, that has almost double the number of chapters (92 compared to 50 in Awakening, excluding DLC for both). It doesn't mean IS has any incentive to do it though. Especially when they could just make a new game with the amount of effort it would take.

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2 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Camus archetype

He's the worst Camus since Camus, Camus is at least fighting to just try and save Grust from Dholrs subjugation by staying on their side.

Eldies doing it because he was told to, Simply that, he has no reason to like his king, he has a good reason to believe that he killed his farther to become king, He is just written as a horrible person, It's surprising that that chapter doesn't play out with a citizens revolt based on the situation.

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3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

They easily could double the chapter count on a 3DS. Look at Fates, that has almost double the number of chapters. It doesn't mean IS has any incentive to do it though. Especially when they could just make a new game with the amount of effort it would take.

One would think that, but sadly, the only ones they made were the special cards that are so limited in stock that no one owns it. Instead they separated the paths to be bought separately. 

And you are right. Hence why I mentioned supplementary materials. Look how we're having the Valentian Accordion showing such a hefty amount of lore for things that tied to Awakening. Grima or the Mila Tree. 

1 minute ago, DemolisherBPB said:

He's the worst Camus since Camus, Camus is at least fighting to just try and save Grust from Dholrs subjugation by staying on their side.

Eldies doing it because he was told to, Simply that, he has no reason to like his king, he has a good reason to believe that he killed his farther to become king, He is just written as a horrible person, It's surprising that that chapter doesn't play out with a citizens revolt based on the situation.

Except unlike Camus, who is one man that became a knight, Eldigan is tied to generations of traditions by his house. 

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11 minutes ago, DemolisherBPB said:

He's the worst Camus since Camus, Camus is at least fighting to just try and save Grust from Dholrs subjugation by staying on their side.

Eldies doing it because he was told to, Simply that, he has no reason to like his king, he has a good reason to believe that he killed his farther to become king, He is just written as a horrible person, It's surprising that that chapter doesn't play out with a citizens revolt based on the situation.

What are his alternatives? Grannvale is an expansionist empire that's just conquered Isaac, Verdane and over half of Agustria already. The nobles are already bleeding the occupied lands dry and Sigurd's made no headway in freeing his people. His friend is just a cog in the imperialistic agenda that seeks to conquer his homeland for their own personal gain.

All he can do is either

A) Fight the empire that seeks to destroy him.

B)Kill Chagall in a bloody coup and declare himself king of Agustria and then try to negotiate with the empire (which wouldn't work because it would weaken Agustria and  Grannvale is posed to invade anyway, it would also be massively out of character for him)

C)Abandon his people to their fate and defect to a third party neutral country, either Sileese or Munster (which would be the smartest choice, but it would also be widely out of character for him).

Eldigan isn't badly written. Langbolt and Reptor are for not making clearer what kind of nation Grannvale actually is at this time in order to preserve the plot twist of Sigurd being declared a traitor at the end of the chapter.

Edited by Jotari
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I'm not following the "Awakening likely had poor writing because of the 3DS" argument. 

The 3DS is waaaaaay more powerful than the SNES, where Fire Emlem writing reached its peak for many people, and it's much closer to the GameCube than anything else, where people who don't think SNES was peak FE writing will probably point to instead. Hell, the DS was more powerful than the SNES, and DS carts could hold 10x the information that SNES carts could. So I don't know how the platform one generation after the DS would be a problem. 

I think Awakening's writing was poor because... Well, I don't think very good writers worked on the game. They clearly had some neat ideas sprinkled in, but even when they were being derivative of Jugdral, Archanaea, and Valentia, they just simply didn't know how to turn that stuff into compelling stories. Most parts of Awakening could be described as "X, but worse". The one original thing it does, time travel, is pretty divisive, and even people on the side of "It was a good idea" seem to think that the whole idea of time travel was still left a lot to be desired. 

Maybe it was too many cooks in the kitchen, or maybe they weren't worried about writing satisfying storylines, but I think Fates makes it clear that the fault lies with the current writing staff at FE, and not the platform Fates and Awakening were on. 

Edited by Slumber
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4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

What are his alternatives?

B)Kill Chagall in a bloody coup and declare himself king of Agustria and then try to negotiate with the empire (which wouldn't work because it would weaken Agustria and  Grannvale is posed to invade anyway, it would also be massively out of character for him)

It's not like the people of Agustria don't support him as a choice for King. So far that one village outright states it. He could have simply remained neutral and taken the throne at the people wish.

12 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Eldigan is tied to generations of traditions by his house. 

I get the whys, it's just how it's presented comes across as really poor. He just comes off as someone who gives zero cares about the people around him because he was told not to do something. He let his son grow up without a farther, because he was told "You can't hurt the royal family".

But anyway, I'm too stubborn to change my mind quickly, and It's rude of me to just insult things, Sorry to be a nuisance, 

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17 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I'm not following the "Awakening likely had poor writing because of the 3DS" argument. 

The 3DS is waaaaaay more powerful than the SNES, where Fire Emlem writing reached its peak for many people, and it's much closer to the GameCube than anything else, where people who don't think SNES was peak FE writing will probably point to instead. Hell, the DS was more powerful than the SNES, and DS carts could hold 10x the information that SNES carts could. So I don't know how the platform one generation after the DS would be a problem. 

I think Awakening's writing was poor because... Well, I don't think very good writers worked on the game. They clearly had some neat ideas sprinkled in, but even when they were being derivative of Jugdral, Archanaea, and Valentia, they just simply didn't know how to turn that stuff into compelling stories. Most parts of Awakening could be described as "X, but worse". The one original thing it does, time travel, is pretty divisive, and even people on the side of "It was a good idea" seem to think that the whole idea of time travel was still left a lot to be desired. 

Maybe it was too many cooks in the kitchen, or maybe they weren't worried about writing satisfying storylines, but I think Fates makes it clear that the fault lies with the current writing staff at FE, and not the platform Fates and Awakening were on. 

Half of their work load also involving figuring out how to write a believable romance between Libra and Panne and other such stuff probably didn't help matters.

6 minutes ago, DemolisherBPB said:

It's not like the people of Agustria don't support him as a choice for King. So far that one village outright states it. He could have simply remained neutral and taken the throne at the people wish.

I get the whys, it's just how it's presented comes across as really poor. He just comes off as someone who gives zero cares about the people around him because he was told not to do something. He let his son grow up without a farther, because he was told "You can't hurt the royal family".

But anyway, I'm too stubborn to change my mind quickly, and It's rude of me to just insult things, Sorry to be a nuisance, 

Chagall would not give up the throne without a fight. There other people listening to his orders and fighting for him after all. It would have severely weakened Agustria and wouldn't have actually solved the problem of the fact that more than half their lands have already been seized by an foreign power. Not to mention, as I said already, it would have been very out of character for Eldigan to outright murder the man he swore to serve just because he felt like it. Declaring himself king would have done nothing to actually help the people who were fucked regardless (just like Sileese and Leinster eventually got fucked by Grannvale). The problem with Chapter 3 is definitely in the presentation, but it's the fact that the Sigurd is actually working for the wrong side being underplayed that's the problem, not Eldigan's actions (who actually does everything in his power to try and avoid fighting Sigurd, including outright refusing to and getting executed for it).

Edited by Jotari
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