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8 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

This is a pretty interesting analysis. Although I thought some of this, I didn't realize the possibility that Mila 2.0 could be in fact, evil, and Berserker Rudolf will be an ally. This makes me a lot more interested in the characters of the story, because Fire Emblem has a tendency to make the pretty & flower-y characters good guys while the fire & brimstone types the bad guys. It's usually very obvious who's good and who's bad, but now I'm realizing that this may not be the case with this game. 

Furthermore, looking at some of the other enemy NPCs shown (Mercedes, Hilda, and some of the other guys), this definitely seems to be true. Because the more I look at the trailer, the less they look recruitable. This is pretty interesting, because this makes identifying recruitable enemies harder, and there's a lot more female enemies as well. The enemy definitely looks cartoonishy evil, so the characters seem enough to get excited about.

Thank you!! :D:

I hadn't thought about the recruitable aspect, but its true! there seems to be more enemies with a specific face and name now, so that will be very interesting. And I do hope there will be more female enemies in general as you say, that would be cool!

And yes, I get what you mean, evil characters in Fire Emblem tend to be so easy to spot, and with that whole "being pretty equals goodness" thing the overall message is not good, haha.

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I thought I would like to add that translating the Japanese title into 'Four Seasons' really doesn't do it justice in terms of showing what the meaning of the phrase is. That word/phrase originated from a Chinese idiom that does refer to the four seasons. But I feel like there are also other definitions of that phrase (in Chinese) that can also be applied to the game. To keep it super condensed, the idiom itself can be used in three different ways. The first is to describe poetry or texts that are very flowery, elegant or grand in terms of the choice of words but in actuality mean very little, shallow or be 'hollow'. The second definition is used to describe a beautiful romance. The third definition is how a person is living a wasteful life of various 'pleasures'. My translations aren't perfect since it's really hard to translate idioms into English without writing an essay but I feel like some of these definitions can also come into play in terms of shaping the plot of the story.

 

Of course...it might not matter at all because those are the phrase's original definitions in Chinese but I'm not sure if the Japanese version of the phrase includes anything beyond describing the seasons..

Edited by zuibangde
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3 hours ago, zuibangde said:

I thought I would like to add that translating the Japanese title into 'Four Seasons' really doesn't do it justice in terms of showing what the meaning of the phrase is. That word/phrase originated from a Chinese idiom that does refer to the four seasons. But I feel like there are also other definitions of that phrase (in Chinese) that can also be applied to the game. To keep it super condensed, the idiom itself can be used in three different ways. The first is to describe poetry or texts that are very flowery, elegant or grand in terms of the choice of words but in actuality mean very little, shallow or be 'hollow'. The second definition is used to describe a beautiful romance. The third definition is how a person is living a wasteful life of various 'pleasures'. My translations aren't perfect since it's really hard to translate idioms into English without writing an essay but I feel like some of these definitions can also come into play in terms of shaping the plot of the story.

 

Of course...it might not matter at all because those are the phrase's original definitions in Chinese but I'm not sure if the Japanese version of the phrase includes anything beyond describing the seasons..

Ohh, thank you su much for sharing this info :D:!! I was really curious about the chinese poem itself! since it's the name of the game, it should mean a lot. I hope they gave it that name more for the content of the original source than for the japanese interpretation of it, since what you describe sounds very very interesting, and I would like to see it applied somewhere in the game.

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I'm wondering if the "harsh, irrational world" line might have more weight than I originally thought. Since we get a large-scale battle in the background at this point in the trailer, I initially shrugged it off as a relatively generic line about how war sucks and the church is making everything terrible..., but I'm not so sure anymore. That being said, outside of that iron maiden thing, we saw no signs of monsters or natural catastrophes whatsoever, so it's hard to say for sure.

It does seem likely that we're going to oppose the church for potentially the whole game, but the reason might not simply be that they're ruthless. And we could also be running around collecting/destroying the crests in an attempt to restore a lost balance of some kind, not opposing the church directly but ultimately having to fight them anyway.

I'm just really hopeful that line actually means something.

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1 hour ago, Cysx said:

I'm wondering if the "harsh, irrational world" line might have more weight than I originally thought. Since we get a large-scale battle in the background at this point in the trailer, I initially shrugged it off as a relatively generic line about how war sucks and the church is making everything terrible..., but I'm not so sure anymore. That being said, outside of that iron maiden thing, we saw no signs of monsters or natural catastrophes whatsoever, so it's hard to say for sure.

It does seem likely that we're going to oppose the church for potentially the whole game, but the reason might not simply be that they're ruthless. And we could also be running around collecting/destroying the crests in an attempt to restore a lost balance of some kind, not opposing the church directly but ultimately having to fight them anyway.

I'm just really hopeful that line actually means something.

That would be really interesting actually. It would be nice if the church isn`t all bad, but not perfect either. Hopefully monsters will not be appearing in this game (we`ve had them for three games in a row at this point).

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9 minutes ago, Metal Flash said:

That would be really interesting actually. It would be nice if the church isn`t all bad, but not perfect either. Hopefully monsters will not be appearing in this game (we`ve had them for three games in a row at this point).

Yes, that's a fair point. If I'm correct I kinda wish they go for something else this time around as well.

Edited by Cysx
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17 hours ago, zuibangde said:

I thought I would like to add that translating the Japanese title into 'Four Seasons' really doesn't do it justice in terms of showing what the meaning of the phrase is. That word/phrase originated from a Chinese idiom that does refer to the four seasons. But I feel like there are also other definitions of that phrase (in Chinese) that can also be applied to the game. To keep it super condensed, the idiom itself can be used in three different ways. The first is to describe poetry or texts that are very flowery, elegant or grand in terms of the choice of words but in actuality mean very little, shallow or be 'hollow'. The second definition is used to describe a beautiful romance. The third definition is how a person is living a wasteful life of various 'pleasures'. My translations aren't perfect since it's really hard to translate idioms into English without writing an essay but I feel like some of these definitions can also come into play in terms of shaping the plot of the story.

 

Of course...it might not matter at all because those are the phrase's original definitions in Chinese but I'm not sure if the Japanese version of the phrase includes anything beyond describing the seasons..

They may matter. We can try to interpret each of those meanings from what we know so far.

  1. Flowery, but hollow- Can refer to how the Church of Seiros makes grand ceremonies and promises miracles, but that isn't necessarily true. One criticism (not my own) of religion is that it exists just to make people feel better about what they don't know, so all of the religious ceremonies don't have much backing to them.
  2. Beautiful romance- Not a concept unknown to Fire Emblem. A romance blossoming amidst the chaos of war can be a good contrast. Plus, romance may also refer to something picturesque or artistic, so it can be a love for nature.
  3. Wasteful Life- Again, like the first thing, can be a criticism of a Church of Seiros. Although once good, has become corrupted, and has strayed from the path from which they once walked.
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8 hours ago, Cysx said:

I'm wondering if the "harsh, irrational world" line might have more weight than I originally thought. Since we get a large-scale battle in the background at this point in the trailer, I initially shrugged it off as a relatively generic line about how war sucks and the church is making everything terrible..., but I'm not so sure anymore. That being said, outside of that iron maiden thing, we saw no signs of monsters or natural catastrophes whatsoever, so it's hard to say for sure.

It does seem likely that we're going to oppose the church for potentially the whole game, but the reason might not simply be that they're ruthless. And we could also be running around collecting/destroying the crests in an attempt to restore a lost balance of some kind, not opposing the church directly but ultimately having to fight them anyway.

I'm just really hopeful that line actually means something.

Well, there's the theory talked about here before saying tge crests could be the remains of the goddess' mortal body. If so, maybe reuniting them all would make the goddess appear/revive like a final boss, something that sounds to me VERY Fire Emble-esque, and I hope it's not the case because that would be a very simple and straightfoward storyline.

Or collecting them could make the Fire Emblem.

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9 minutes ago, Boring Panda said:

Well, there's the theory talked about here before saying tge crests could be the remains of the goddess' mortal body. If so, maybe reuniting them all would make the goddess appear/revive like a final boss, something that sounds to me VERY Fire Emble-esque, and I hope it's not the case because that would be a very simple and straightfoward storyline.

Or collecting them could make the Fire Emblem.

Well, assuming the crests are weapons I guess it's very unlikely we'll be destroying them when they could act as legendaries instead. I agree, that makes a worrying amount of sense.

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7 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

They may matter. We can try to interpret each of those meanings from what we know so far.

  1. Flowery, but hollow- Can refer to how the Church of Seiros makes grand ceremonies and promises miracles, but that isn't necessarily true. One criticism (not my own) of religion is that it exists just to make people feel better about what they don't know, so all of the religious ceremonies don't have much backing to them.
  2. Beautiful romance- Not a concept unknown to Fire Emblem. A romance blossoming amidst the chaos of war can be a good contrast. Plus, romance may also refer to something picturesque or artistic, so it can be a love for nature.
  3. Wasteful Life- Again, like the first thing, can be a criticism of a Church of Seiros. Although once good, has become corrupted, and has strayed from the path from which they once walked.

We know that three Lords are based on three (of four) seasons. Going by that premise isn't more likely that "shallowness" and "wastefulness" is also intended to be about them living well intentioned but ultimately sheltered life ignorant of the world before they get wake up call and have to leave their comfortable lifestyle for greater good?

At least I find such message much more balanced then translate it like Fire Emblem: Church is evil

Edited by Tenzen12
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On 6/15/2018 at 12:33 AM, Tenzen12 said:

And when we are up to this, we can also remove lords, supports, Fire emblem and weapon triangle. We don't need things that makes Fire Emblem Fire Emblem in our Fire Emblem... again.

Ok, I don't think that's entirely fair. We have had Fire Emblem games without supports and the Weapon's triangle before, admittedly mostly in the remakes. And we have had final bosses not be dragons before; namely in the Tellius duology and Genealogy of the Holy War. Genealogy had a demon-possessed teenager as the final boss and Tellius had a Dragon Laguz Rider as the technical final boss in Path of Radiance and a Goddess in Radiant Dawn. We can live without a dragon final boss in a Fire Emblem game.

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5 hours ago, SimplyUnknown said:

Ok, I don't think that's entirely fair. We have had Fire Emblem games without supports and the Weapon's triangle before, admittedly mostly in the remakes. And we have had final bosses not be dragons before; namely in the Tellius duology and Genealogy of the Holy War. Genealogy had a demon-possessed teenager as the final boss and Tellius had a Dragon Laguz Rider as the technical final boss in Path of Radiance and a Goddess in Radiant Dawn. We can live without a dragon final boss in a Fire Emblem game.

Well if you want to be technical the "demon possessed teenager" was possessed by a dragon demon god, so maybe he could count. I don't really count him though. It would be a bit different if it was like Awakening, where the dragon body itself is in the world.

Also, in Sacred Stones you fight a demon lord who isn't a dragon, and in Thraciaa 776 it's not a dragon either. So that's 5 or so games with no dragon boss.

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5 hours ago, SimplyUnknown said:

Ok, I don't think that's entirely fair. We have had Fire Emblem games without supports and the Weapon's triangle before, admittedly mostly in the remakes. And we have had final bosses not be dragons before; namely in the Tellius duology and Genealogy of the Holy War. Genealogy had a demon-possessed teenager as the final boss and Tellius had a Dragon Laguz Rider as the technical final boss in Path of Radiance and a Goddess in Radiant Dawn. We can live without a dragon final boss in a Fire Emblem game.

Julius isn't a demon possessed teenager, he's a dragon possessed teenager. And by the time you fight him, it's all but stated that Julius is gone, and all that's left is a husk being controlled by Loptyr, the dragon in question. 

So it might be splitting hairs, but Genealogy still technically ends with a fight against a dragon. 

Anyway, I expect the story to be a wicked road trip to White Castle when Byleth, Edelgard, Claude and Dimitri get the munchies. 

Edited by Slumber
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Well, like I said, even if you want to be really technical about Julius, Fire Emblem 5, 8, 9, and 10 all do not have dragon final bosses, and Fire Emblem 7 barely counts either. (The dragon isn't even a character, just some rampaging nameless dragon summoned in the last gasps by the real villain of the game.)

Also, before now, we've never had 5 dragon final bosses in a row. Some of that is of course the fact that 3 of the last 5 games have been remakes of the first 3 games. The point is that yes, dragon bosses are a Fire Emblem staple and fine, but they're not required for the series, and in the past it's always occasionally mixed things up with "oh you're fighting human who is possessed by a dragon god" or "you're just fighting a human with great powers" or "you're fighting a demon" "or you're fighting a goddess that's not dragon related", and so forth. And it hasn't done that for a while now, thanks again probably because of the 3 remakes, so it might be nice to change things up again.

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16 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

We know that three Lords are based on three (of four) seasons. Going by that premise isn't more likely that "shallowness" and "wastefulness" is also intended to be about them living well intentioned but ultimately sheltered life ignorant of the world before they get wake up call and have to leave their comfortable lifestyle for greater good?

At least I find such message much more balanced then translate it like Fire Emblem: Church is evil

Tbh, that would make it a lot more interesting from a story perspective. I do really hope the protagonists do get some sort of bad rep. Going against a church will most likely piss a lot of people/commoners off.

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1 hour ago, Dandy Druid said:

Tbh, that would make it a lot more interesting from a story perspective. I do really hope the protagonists do get some sort of bad rep. Going against a church will most likely piss a lot of people/commoners off.

Eeeh, I am pretty sure they will be one of better nobles out there. I mean they probably doesn't evern govern they land and except Claude none of them looks like kind of person who would  indulge in worldy desires. So I don't see them earn any grudges personaly (their families in other hand and nobility in general might be completelly different matter) But I do thing they still can be shallow in their idealistic thinking and be gnorant of world, which they would they learn hard way.

Something like that?

Edited by Tenzen12
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Every aspect of the poem doesn't have to apply to all of the protagonists. It could be that Claude fills the third definition about a wasteful life; Dimitri looks like the idealistic yet ultimately wrong kind of character, so maybe he could fill the first definition about elegance on par with shallowness, or it could be Edelgard. And the one left would go by the second definition.

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6 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

Eeeh, I am pretty sure they will be one of better nobles out there. I mean they probably doesn't evern govern they land and except Claude none of them looks like kind of person who would  indulge in worldy desires. So I don't see them earn any grudges personaly (their families in other hand and nobility in general might be completelly different matter) But I do thing they still can be shallow in their idealistic thinking and be gnorant of world, which they would they learn hard way.

Something like that?

I can see that. Edelgard's resolute "The crests are to blame" may be indicative of this way of thinking? Maybe it's not the crests, but those using them?

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Maybe, though I don't think she could get this resolution early in game. Think about it, this is (probably) medieval society where kings rule per will of God (Goddess) and church is highest moral authority. If Edelgard had such ideas this early she wouldn't be even able attend noble academy, hell even her parents could get stripped of their tittle and executed as heretics. For that reason I doubt this is her "default worldview"

If she decided go against very system continent work on, it have to be because she got peek into some "dark secret"

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Interesting read and definitely one of the more compelling theories attempting to pin down the story that I've read so far.

 

I will definitely be keeping tabs on this so that I may compare it to details in the game as they are released. Nicely done!

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15 hours ago, Affinity said:

Interesting read and definitely one of the more compelling theories attempting to pin down the story that I've read so far.

 

I will definitely be keeping tabs on this so that I may compare it to details in the game as they are released. Nicely done!

Thank you very much!! I appreciate it :D:!!

On 17/06/2018 at 12:40 PM, Tenzen12 said:

More or less yes. Poem itself is flowery metaphor, so I don't think we need take literaly what is vague alusion in first place. It need  just to get mood right to make it's tittle justice.

I disagree, actually, I believe it is important. They're already using the poem as the symbols for each house (the flower, representing spring in the poem, is in the house Edelgarde comes from, the snow representing winter for Dimitri's house, and the moon representing autumn for Claude's), so they are being very literal about it. And the fact they didn't named it with some generic title but specifically took it from a famous chinese poem indicates the meaning of this poem is somehow key to the story or the characters.

I can't speak about the localization of the title being Three Houses, though, because it's not the first time a localization team (specially for FE) kills the original meaning of a name, phrase or entire conversation just because of some lame reasoning :(:

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On 6/15/2018 at 7:52 AM, zuibangde said:

I thought I would like to add that translating the Japanese title into 'Four Seasons' really doesn't do it justice in terms of showing what the meaning of the phrase is. That word/phrase originated from a Chinese idiom that does refer to the four seasons. But I feel like there are also other definitions of that phrase (in Chinese) that can also be applied to the game. To keep it super condensed, the idiom itself can be used in three different ways. The first is to describe poetry or texts that are very flowery, elegant or grand in terms of the choice of words but in actuality mean very little, shallow or be 'hollow'. The second definition is used to describe a beautiful romance. The third definition is how a person is living a wasteful life of various 'pleasures'. My translations aren't perfect since it's really hard to translate idioms into English without writing an essay but I feel like some of these definitions can also come into play in terms of shaping the plot of the story.

Maybe it is just me, but the more I think about the Japanese title, the more bland Three Houses just sound. At least Four Seasons sounds better, even if it does not do the original meaning justice. Based on your descriptions, I think the Japanese title probably sounds way more epic in Japanese than the English title sounds in English. I wish the localization team would convey that epicness in the English title too. As it is now, three Houses sounds more like a bland code name for a secret project rather than a story title in my opinion. It sounds about as boring as "The Flame Sword" or "The Magic Rocks."

Instead of "Three Houses," "Axis of Apostasy" sounds awesome in my head, although I am not really sure if the three houses are allies.

On 6/16/2018 at 8:19 AM, Boring Panda said:

Or collecting them could make the Fire Emblem.

If we do collect them, I wish they could be items that we could use, whether as individual pieces or as a combined whole.

In Awakening, we were collecting the five gems to complete the shield, but it was strictly an element of the story so it does not really do anything for Chrom gameplay wise.

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3 hours ago, Boring Panda said:

 

I disagree, actually, I believe it is important. They're already using the poem as the symbols for each house (the flower, representing spring in the poem, is in the house Edelgarde comes from, the snow representing winter for Dimitri's house, and the moon representing autumn for Claude's), so they are being very literal about it. And the fact they didn't named it with some generic title but specifically took it from a famous chinese poem indicates the meaning of this poem is somehow key to the story or the characters.

I can't speak about the localization of the title being Three Houses, though, because it's not the first time a localization team (specially for FE) kills the original meaning of a name, phrase or entire conversation just because of some lame reasoning :(:

How exactly "somehow key to the story" equal "literal"? By using word "somehow" you already creating leaveaway that IS might use imaginery from famous chinese poem (That I can't find anywhere) in it's own way. This poem apparently also refer "peaceful utopia" Which is something I am quite  certain is  not what we will get in it's literal sense of word for example.

FE16 is not direct adaptation of it, it use it uses it to tell own story and give it depth. Trying use every single possible meaning could do it diservice even.

 

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2 hours ago, XRay said:

If we do collect them, I wish they could be items that we could use, whether as individual pieces or as a combined whole.

In Awakening, we were collecting the five gems to complete the shield, but it was strictly an element of the story so it does not really do anything for Chrom gameplay wise.

I get what you mean, like in Mystery of the Emblem the star shards and the Fire Emblem itself at least give the holder significant stat boosts (and for some reason the Fire Emblem gives Marth the ability to open stuff without a key). Strangely enough, even though it's the same Fire Emblem, it has no stat boosts or anything in Awakening.

15 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

How exactly "somehow key to the story" equal "literal"? By using word "somehow" you already creating leaveaway that IS might use imaginery from famous chinese poem (That I can't find anywhere) in it's own way. This poem apparently also refer "peaceful utopia" Which is something I am quite  certain is  not what we will get in it's literal sense of word for example.

FE16 is not direct adaptation of it, it use it uses it to tell own story and give it depth. Trying use every single possible meaning could do it diservice even.

 

What's this? Please, don't derail or change what I'm saying. I never said the game was an adaptation of the poem or an adaptation of anything, nor I said anything about them "trying to use every single possible meaning", so please don't put words in my mouth. And before you say something like "that's basically what you said", let me answer straight away: no, it isn't.

I simply think the japanese title has an important meaning, and that's it. There's no need to agree with me.

EDIT: Also, I used "somehow" because I myself don't know what the story is, I don't work in IntSys to know that. "Somehow" does not equal "somewhat".

Edited by Boring Panda
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